LA 375 
.04 P5 
'1915 
Copy 1 



REPORT 



of 



Ogden Public School 

Survey 

Commission 



Published by the 

State Department of Education 

by permission of the 

Ogden City School Board 



REPORT 



of 



Ogden Public School 

Survey 

Commission 



Published by the 

State Department of Education 

by permission of the 

Ogden City School Board 



tf 



v^ 



•fh 



\ 



O 



JUL 2/ 1915 






Report of 

Ogden Public School 

Survey Commission 



DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 

Bureau of Education, Washington. 

Division of School Administration. 
Mr. J. M. Mills, Supt. of Schools, 
Ogden, Utah. 

My Dear Mr. Mills: I am sending you a copy of our re- 
port as edited by the Editor of this Bureau. It seems to me 
that you should have an introductory page or two, and that 
among other things you should call attention to the fact that 
throughout the report the criticism made in our part regarding 
the half day plan refers only to the work inside the school. 
You will find that we recommend credit for work outside the 
school. Professors Ward and Roylance also treat of this 
phase of your school situation. A summary of our report, it 
seems to me, would be an excellent thing. 

Please send me several copies of the printed report. 

Sincerely yours, 
(Signed) W. S. DEFFENBAUGH, 
Specialist in School Administration. 



OGDEN SCHOOL SURVEY REPORT. OGDEN, UTAH. 
INTRODUCTION. 

* 

THE HALF DAY SESSION PLAN. 
By Supt. J. M. Mils. 

A year ago a proposal was made in Ogden for vitalizing the 
schools by reorganizing them on an industrial plan, having a half 
day of academic and a half day of industrial, social and physical work, 
and in certain cases boys and girls were to be excused from the in- 
dustrial half day of the school to take their industrial work in some 
of the approved industries of our city on the co-operative plan, on 
the theory that the real, practical work of life should be an essential 
part of our educational system; provided that it shall be thoroughly 
supervised and that the intellectual, physical and social progress of 
the student shall not in any way be hampered. Some kinds of work 
have little or no educational value. Other kinds are injurious to body, 
mind and morals. The child should be protected by the school from 
entering such employments. It was also thought that the educational 
value of earning and saving money was an important thing in the 
training of young people. This plan was intended to make full use 
of the school plant all the time — day and evening — the year around. 
The proper mingling of work, play and study can lengthen the school 
day without injury to any child, while under the present system the 
present day is too long. Cramming the child with a mass of unrelated, 
disconnected, disassociated, meaningless abstract formalities is mak- 
ing a generation of mental dyspeptics unfitted for usefulness. The 
benefits of longer supervision in related activities are numerous. The 
rights of every individual child should be safeguarded, and in some 
cases it is known that the home can provide better training than the 
school for a part of the time each day. Great care should be taken 
by the school officers, however, that careless and grasping parents 
should not exploit their children for mere financial gain. Junior and 
Senior High School boys and girls may be directed by the home, 
with great profit, in housekeeping, dairying, cabinet making, garden- 
ing and many other occupations, as well as in private lessons in art, 
music, languages, elocution, etc. The daily program should be such 
that the book-minded or the hand-minded child can be cared for 
and his choice under guidance should be encouraged. Many boys and 
girls, too, could be brought back to school for the academic half day, 
who are compelled to leave school, continuing the industrial half day 
away from the school plant. If their necessities demand their full 
time outside, their academic training could be obtained in the evening 
school, provided in the Social Center. 

The Social Center. 

Every school building should be kept open all day and evening. 
Work, play and study should be the program of each session. Run- 
ning a school system should receive as much business sense as any 
other big business. Any other business, after having built a large 
expensive plant would want to use that plant to its capacity. School 
buildings are generally used five and a half hours a day, five days in 
a week, nine months in the year, and stand idle the other half of the 
time. Why this appalling loss? The Ogden Plan calls for the full 
use of the plants all the time, each building containing full facilities for 



all lines of development — be they manual training, sewing, cooking, 
swimming, bowling, hand-ball, gymnasium work, reading, lectures, 
music, dancing, dramatics, or any training wanted by both young and 
old of both sexes. 

Work. 

There is no one thing in all the experience of youth that does 
more to develop men and women of common sense than work. The 
weakest point in our American school system is that there is little 
provision for training boys and girls to be useful. A little work 
scattered along in all the years of the student's life will make him 
more reliable, his reason more logical, his judgment more sound, his 
aspirations more lofty, and his ambitions more enduring. The tendency 
of physical work is to promote and sustain the mental and physical 
organization in an uninterrupted action of health until it shall be 
broken up and dissolved in death. Man is kept in life by work, and 
dies because he will not or cannot work. Every boy should know how 
to make a living when he leaves school, and every girl how to make 
and keep a pleasant home. 

Education is the acquisition of power; not an accumulation of 
facts. The one who is best educated is the one who is best fitted for 
life, and it often happens that a man is best educated who has never 
been in school, and that a man who has been through college is most 
unfitted for life. When the time comes that anyone may properly 
fit himself in the school-room for life's duties, our schools will serve 
their best purpose. The kitten in its play imitates the more serious 
work of the grown animal. This helps to fit it for its later work. 
There can be no valid reason given why the training of children 
should be entirely unlike their later duties. The school should be 
industrial, cultural, and social, and should provide training along all 
these lines. "We learn to do by doing." The school should provide 
as nearly as possible the laboratories for training in the various lines 
that may be taken up later in life. It is especially difficult to see why 
the school plant should open for operation at nine o'clock in the 
morning and close at three o'clock in the afternoon. In most places 
there is no reason except an ancient tradition, why it should not run 
on Saturday and in the summer. School should be made as much like 
real life as possible since its purpose is to prepare for life. 

Our education is continuous. It begins in the cradle and ends 
with the grave, and is made up of work, play and study. Too often 
one or two of these sides may be overlooked or eliminated from our 
training, giving us at best an imperfect preparation. The man or 
woman who does not know how to work is handicapped through life 
even though a legacy might have been left to him through the death 
of a wealthy ancestor. One who does not know how to play becomes 
old while yet young and misses the pleasures of his own life and fails 
to know those of the lives of others. 

The Bad Boy. 

In every school there should be lines of preparation for the 
hand-minded as well as the book-minded boy. In our bookish schools, 
the boy who does not fit becomes nervous and irritable. His very 
being revolts against what is to him meaningless abstration. This 
type of boy is extremely energetic, and must express himself in some 
manner that gives to himself satisfaction. The ordinary school does 
not provide the opportunity except through truancy and worse mis- 
behavior. Truant officers and probation officers are put on his track. 



They hound him about. Much effort and energy are put forth to 
make him fit the school. Half the effort to make the school fit him 
might solve the problem. He is called a bad boy. A bad boy is simply 
a misfit. Bad boys are often the best boys in the community. They 
revolt against the so-called cultural education. Their teachers have 
failed to comprehend them. 

These proposals aroused considerable opposition in the com- 
munity, and the Superintendent proposed the appointment of a com- 
mission to survey the schools. This commission was appointed by 
United States Commissioner of Education, P. P. Claxton, President 
J. T. Kingsbury of the University of Utah, and Professor Milton Ben- 
nion of the Utah State Normal School. They in turn appointed as the 
Survey Commission, Professor W. S. Deffenbaugh, Specialist in School 
Administration of the United States Bureau of Education at Wash- 
ington, Professor Edward J. Ward of the University of Wisconsin, 
Superintendent Charles S. Meek of the Boise, Idaho, Schools, Pro- 
fessor W. G. Roylance of the University of Utah, and Professor 
George A. Eaton, Principal of the Salt Lake City schools. 

These men worked earnestly and vigorously during the time 
that they were in Ogden, but their time was limited to one week. 

Following is a copy of their report: 

REPORT OF SCHOOL SURVEY COMMISSION. 

Ogden City, Utah, May 11th, 1914. 
To the Board of Education of Ogden City, Utah. 

Gentlemen: We recognize that a comprehensive inquiry into 
the efficiency of any public school system, such as you have requested 
the committee to make for Ogden, has two main aspects, first, the 
aspect in which the school system is considered specifically as the 
actual machinery for the instruction of children, and second, the 
aspect in which it is considered as the potential machinery for the 
whole community's co-operation in an educational process that in- 
cludes also the systematic organization of the political, economic, and 
recreational life of adults and older youth. On account of shortness 
of time, the committee has divided its labor, allotting to three of its 
members, Messrs. Deffenbaugh, Meek, and Eaton, the study of the 
public school system under the former aspect: and to two of its 
members, Messrs. Roylance and Ward, the study of the school system 
under the latter aspect; and we beg leave to submit the following 
report: 

School Organization, Curriculum, and Instruction. 
By W. S. Deffenbaugh, George A. Eaton, Charles S. Meek. 

The treatment of the topics alloted to us partakes more of the 
qualities of a school investigation than of a survey. The policy of 
the administration in organizing sub-high schools, establishing a 
very liberal elective system in the high school, and reorganizing the 
sub-high schools on a half day plan, has aroused much discussion in 
your city. Our report, therefore, may appear to give undue emphasis 
to these phases of administration. 



School Board and Superintendent. 

Your committee has been asked to define the relationship that 
should exist between a school board and the superintendent of schools, 
and between the individual members of the board and the superin- 
tendent. The following is our report: 

Legally the power of a school board when in session as a board 
is supreme, but when not in session, the individual member is only 
a citizen; hence he has no right to attempt to dictate school policies 
or to listen to complaints from principals, teachers, or parents. All 
such should be referred to the superintendent. An individual board 
member does not have even the authority of the lowest paid employe, 
unless the board by resolution has delegated him to exercise authority 
in certain matters. A board of education should employ a superin- 
tendent of schools to act as its executive officer. To him it should 
delegate the authority to nominate teachers and recommend their dis- 
missal, to select text books, to formulate courses of study, to recom- 
mend increases in teachers' salaries for efficient service, and to have 
general supervision of instruction. The affairs of the school board 
are largely matters of business. A somewhat similar relation should 
exist between a board of education and the superintendent of schools 
as exists between a board of bank directors and the cashier of the 
bank, or as exists between a board of directors of a hospital and the 
superintendent of the hospital. 

The superintendent should be the head of the system and not a 
figurehead to be ignored by employees of the board. The highest 
compliment that can be paid a superintendent is that he will not be 
dictated to by individual members of the board or by politicians who 
wish to exploit the public schools; that he exacts obedience from his 
teachers; and that he will not permit disloyalty. 

Your committee commends the stand taken by the school board 
of Ogden in the management of your schools, whereby the superin- 
tendent is permitted to be the head of the school system. Any other 
plan is to be condemned. 

The School Plant. 

The commission finds that the school plants in the city of Ogden 
are not up to the standard of cities of the same size in other parts of 
the country. From the standpoint of school hveiene and sanitation the 
Madison School is unfit to house school activities. 

Below the High School there are 150 class rooms. Of these only 
31 have a fair system of ventilation. No building in your city, not 
even the High School, has an automatic thermostat system of control. 
You have 21 rooms in basements used as class rooms. If the city of 
Ogden were under a system of State sanitary control, the Madison 
building would be condemned. The Dee, the Five Points, and 
Central Junior High are not up to any accepted standard from the 
standpoint of sanitation and hygiene. 

The city of Ogden has not done its duty to its children in furnish- 
ing adequate buildings and equipment. It has but a $195,000 school 
bond, with a bonding limit of $441,735.00 Within that limit it can 
yet vote $246,735.00 Few cities in this growing Western country have 
so low bonded indebtedness, and such a broad margin for the voting 
of additional bonds. The city should immediately awaken to the 
duty it owes to its children. 



8 

Average Enrollment of Pupils per Teacher — Average Salaries. 

In the city of Ogden grades seven and eight are organized into 
three sub-high schools. Grades one to six are termed elementary 
schools. 

The average salary of the teachers in the sub-high schools is 
$841.00. The enrollment of pupils per teacher in the sub-high schools 
is 29. The average salary of teachers in the elementary school is 
$649.00. The average enrollment per teacher in the first grade is 
50, in the second 48, in the third 44, in the fourth 36, in the fifth 36, and 
in the sixth 37. 

The average enrollment of pupils per teacher in the first grade 
is almost double that of the eighth grade. The large number of pupils 
in the first three grades necessitates an arrangement whereby, one 
group of pupils attend school in the forenoon and another in the 
afternoon. This policy of half-day attendance of children in the first 
three grades may be accepted because of over-crowded condition of 
schools, but it should not be dopted as permanent educational policy, 
though there is educational authority for half-day sessions in the first 
primary grade. 

The salaries of teachers in the elementary schools (grades one to 
six) average, $192.00 less than teachers of the sub-high schools. Eighty- 
two teachers in the elementary schools have salaries ranging from 
$700.00 maximum to $300.00 minimum. These relatively lower salaries 
mean that very large numbers of young teachers with limited exper- 
ience and limited professional training are in the primary grades. 
Furthermore each of these teachers is intrusted with a much largei 
number of pupils than in sub-high schools. 

The Commission does not believe that the sub-high school teachers 
should have more pupils per teacher and be paid less, but that the 
elementary schools should immediately be given more teachers, and 
salaries so increased that teachers of extended training and long ex- 
perience may be attracted to this department, which is certainly as 
important as any other part of the system. 

The Teaching Force. 

Ogden does not present a situation regarding teachers materially 
different from that of many cities throughout the country. The 
necessity for professional training of teachers has long been recog 
nized. The average salary for teachers in the eight grades of the 
Ogden schools for the past four years has been: 

Grades 1 
Year High School to 8 inc. 

1910-1911 $1,004.00 $547.66 

1911-1912 1,040.00 591.16 

1912-1913 1,070.37 629.44 

1913-1914 1,140.83 098.28 

This low salary schedule necessarily means that a high standard of 
professional efficiency is impossible. The increase of salary during 
four years demonstrates that the school management has recognized 
the necessity for raising the standard. 

The Commission has investigated the educational equipment of 
the present teaching force to determinate the extent of the academic 
and professional training the teachers have acquired beyond the 
usual high school courses. It finds that no teacher is employed who 



has not had at least some training beyond the high school. Ten have 
attended summer schools, 10 have had one half year's college or 
summer school training, 54 have had one year, 48 two years, 9 three 
year, 25 four years, 11 five years and more. 

For the eight grades the present standard of eligibility is two 
years of college or normal training beyond the high school. Candi- 
dates for positions in the high school must be graduates of standard 
colleges. In the high school at present all teachers are college grad- 
uates, except the teachers of art, music and manual training, who have 
had training in special schools. The teachers of household economics 
have college degrees. These facts demonstrate that the school author- 
ities recognize the necessity of professionally trained teachers, and 
have already reached a standard which is distinctive when considered 
in the light of low salaries paid. 

Particularly commendable is the policy of the school board to in- 
crease salaries of the present force, as they present their certificates 
showing they have pursued college extension courses. Eight-seven 
are now doing college extension work, certificates for successful 
completion of which will be factors in determining salaries for next 
year. 

Retardation and Elimination of Pupils. 

Table One. 

A comparison with respect to retardation was instituted between 
Ogden and 386 other cities on the scale of 1,000 pupils in the first 
grade. The eight grades are designated by the figures 1 to 8; the 
high school is designated by the Roman numerals I to IV. 

386 Cities— 



Grade — 1. 

1,000 


2. 

723 


3. 4. 5. 
692 640 552 


6. 7. 

462 368 


8. I. 
263 189 


II. 

123 


III. 
81 


IV. 

56 


Ogden City — 


Grade — 1. 

1,000 


2. 

777 


3. 4. 5. 
766 762 660 


6. 7. 
632 589 


8. I. 

458 362 


II. 

186 


III. 

102 


IV. 
91 



Table One shows the comparison of the grade distribution of pu- 
pils in the Ogden City schools with that of 386 cities as compiled by 
Doctor Leonard Ayres, of the Russel Sage Foundation. The 2,421,988 
pupils distributed throughout the grades of these cities were arranged 
in a scale of 1,000 in the first grade and the proper fraction of that 
scale for each of the twelve grades. Measured by this scale, the city 
of Ogden makes a favorable showing, particularly for the first eight 
grades. For every 1,000 in the primary grades, Ogden has 458 in the 
eighth grades, while the 368 cities have 263 in the eighth grades. The 
high school does not show as favorably but is above the Ayres' scale. 
For every 1,000 in the first primary grade, Ogden has 91 in the fourth 
year of high school, while the 368 cities have but 56. The fact that 
the high school does not retain as large a relative number of pupils 
as do the grades, may be explained by the fact that there are in Ogden 
two other secondary schools — Weber Academy, the enrollment of 
which is 400, and the Sacred Heart Academy, the enrollment of which 
is 260. 



10 

TABLE TWO. 
Ogden Public Schools. 

All Schools. 



AGE 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


• | , 


II. 


III. 


IV. 


Totals 


Five 


219 
























219 


Six 


487 


103 


l 




















591 


Seven 


127 


371 


81 


7 
93 


l 
















586 


Eight 


26 


158 


301 
















579 


Nine 


5 


29 


185 


281 


68 


2 














570 


Ten 




8 


69 


186 


225 


74 


3 












565 


Eleven 




3 


22 


63 


173 


183 


55 


1 










500 


Twelve 






4 


22 


80 


167 


162 


50 


1 








486 


Thirteen 








5 


34 


100 


172 


131 


25 








467 


Fourteen 








S 


4 


22 


95 


138 


90 








352 


Fifteen 













U 


29 


61 


135 


33 






269 


Sixteen 








2 


6 


23 


61 


67 


20 


8 


182 


Seventeen 














1 


3 


4 


40 


43 


29 


120 


Eighteen 


















5 


7 


23 


31 


66 


Nineteen 




















19 


7 


14 


40 


Twenty 


















1 






1 


2 


Over 
Twenty 
























5 


5 


TOTALS 


864 


672 


663 


660 


585 


561 


523 


407 


322 


166 


93 


83 


5599 


No. above 

Normal 

Age 


31 


40 


95 


93 


118 


135 


131 


87 


71 


66 


SO 


20 


917 


% above 

Normal 

Age 


.035 


059 


143 


.14 


.20 


.24 


.25 


.21 


.22 


.39 


.32 


.18 


.198 



September 1, 1913, basis of calculation. 



11 

Table Two. 

Table Two shows the extent to which children are retarded or are 
above the normal age to which they belong. 

In an investigation of 318 cities of the United States it was dis- 
covered that one-half of the cities had more than 36 per cent of their 
children over age for the grade in which they were found. In the 
City of Ogden, in the present year, but 19 per cent of the children are 
over age. This is a very favorable indication as to the successful 
handling of the problems of retardation. (Table Two on page 6). 

Table Three. 



Number 
School out of 

Age Census Enrollment School 

Six years 1,155 

Seven years 683 

Eight years 598 

Nine years 646 

Ten years 581 

Eleven years 510 

Twelve years 586 

Thirteen years 528 

Fourteen years 495 

Fifteen years 496 

Sixteen years 506 

Seventeen years 502 

Eighteen years 577 

Totals 7,863 5,631 2,232 



589 


566 


597 


86 


589 


9 


580 


66 


572 


9 


502 


8 


536 


50 


433 


95 


378 


117 


314 


182 


242 


264 


193 


309 


106 


471 



Table Three. 

Table Three shows the age distribution of pupils and the number 
out of school for each age. The students in the two church schools 
and resident were added to the attendance of those in the public 
schools, and the children of each age were subtracted from the 
number of like age from the school census. A study of the table 
shows the following: Children 12 years of age, but 9 per cent are 
eliminated; of these thirteen years of age, 16 per cent; of these 14 
years of age, 23 per cent; 15 years of age, 38 per cent; 16 years of age, 
52 per cent; of 17 years of age, 61 per cent and of 18 years of age, 81 
per cent. The large per cent of elimination of boys and girls 17 and 
18 years of age is caused by graduation from the high school or acad- 
emy. These two comparisons show that the Ogden schools retain a 
large proportion of the children until graduation from the high 
school. 

For the 318 cities of which figures are available, one-half have 
more than 20 per cent of their children eliminated by the time the fifth 
grade is reached, and more than 50 per cent eliminated by the time 
the eighth grade is reached. The City of Ogden has no figures to 
show definitely the grade elimination, but it does eliminate 52 per 
cent at the age of 16. By this time the great majority of children are 
far beyond the eighth grade, and some of them have reached their 
senior year in high school. Few citites can make a better showing of 
retention of pupils in school and a smaller per cent of those who have 
been eliminated from school in the early elementary grades. 



12 

Average Cost Per Capita. 

The following tables represent the relative cost of elementary and 
high school educated in groups of cities selected for the most part 
from cities of 25,000 to 100,000 population. Some larger Western cities 
were selected. Had the list of cities been continued to twice the 
number, the same story would have been told, revealing that is Ogden 
is considerably below the average in per capita cost of education in 
both elementary and high schools. 

Average Cost Per Capita Per Annum for Elementary Schools. 

1. Berkeley, California $51.32 

2. New Rochelle, N. Y 49.51 

3. Clinton, la 48.47 

4. Oakland, California 43.64 

5. Newton, Mass 41.41 

6. Spokane, Washington 41.05 

7. East Orange, N. J. 40.54 

8. San Diego, California 39.64 

9. Riverside, California 41.24 

10. Fresno, California 39.42 

11. Salt Lake City, Utah 38.34 

12. Hampton, N. J 37.41 

13. Quincy, Mass 37.15 

14. Holyoke, Mass 37.41 

15. Troy, N. Y 37.40 

16. Springfield, 111. . . . 37.19 

17. Santa Cruz, California 37.00 

18. Tacoma, Washington 36.32 

19. Pawtucket, R. 1 36.85 

20. Fresno, Cal 36.14 

21. Newark, N. J 35.44 

22. Denver, Colorado 35.04 

23. Eureka, California 35.32 

24. Saginaw, Michigan 34.07 

25. Youngstown, Ohio 34.94 

26. Bayonne, N. J 34.07 

27. Utica, N. Y 34.61 

28. Meridian, Conn 33.08 

29. Topeka, Kansas 33.66 

30. Elmira, N. Y. 33.69 

31. Evansville, Indiana 33.38 

32. Dayton, Ohio 33.54 

33. Saginaw, West Side, Michigan 32.41 

34. New Bedford, Mass 32.58 

35. Sioux City, la 32.61 

36. East St. Louis, Mo 31.03 

37. South Bend. Indiana 32.27 

38. Fitchburg, Mass 31.33 

39. OGDEN, UTAH 30.37 

40. LaCross, Wisconsin 30.64 

41. Decatur, 111 29.25 

42. Ithaca, N. Y 29.65 

43. New Luchet, Conn 29.59 

44. Altoona, Pa 28.22 

45. Sheboygan, Wisconsin 28.29 

46. York, Pa 28.02 

47. Elizabeth, N. Y 28.77 



13 

Average Cost Per Capita Per Annum for Secondary Schools. 

1. Niagara, N. Y $101.20 

2. Seattle, Washington 101.00 

3. Bayonne, N. J 1°0- 00 

4. San Diego, California 99.04 

5. East Orange, N. J 98.70 

6. Evansville, Ind 92.78 

7. Newark, N. J 89.50 

8. Watertown, N. J 87.75 

9. Dayton, Ohio 86.87 

10. New Rochelle, N. Y 86.56 

11. Riverside, California 85.33 

12. Pueblo, Colorado 85.35 

13. Spokane, Washington 82.78 

14. East St. Louis, Mo 82.75 

15. Fresno, California 82.32 

16. El Paso, Texas 81.35 

17. Cambridge, Mass 79.98 

18. Muskogee, Okla 79.83 

19. Troy, N. Y 79.93 

20. Hampton, N. Y 79.50 

21. Yonkers, N. Y (9.70 

22. Montgomery, Ala 79.63 

23. Santa Cruz, Cal 79.63 

24. Salt Lake City, Utah 79.19 

25. Rockford, 111 78.83 

26. San Jose, California ^^ 

27. Hoboken, N. J To.80 

28. Elizabeth, N. J 75-40 

29. Torrington, Conn 75.14 

30. Eureka, California 75.09 

31. New Bedford, N. Y 75.00 

32. Denver, Colorado 72.93 

33. Decatur, 111 69.74 

34. Waterbury, Conn 69.73 

35. Tacoma, Washington 69.66 

36. Poughkeepsie, N. Y 69.44 

37. Evansville, Indiana 69.09 

38. Auburn, N. Y 68.89 

39. Utica, N. Y 68.67 

40. Maldon, Mass 68.55 

41. New Port, R. 1 66.38 

42. Bayonne, N. J 65.14 

43. Cairo, 111 64.21 

44. Everett, Mass 64.00 

45. OGDEN, UTAH 60.83 

46. Fitchburg, Mass 56 - 24 

47. Canton, Ohio 5S - 30 

48. Topeka, Kansas 54 -93 

49. Altoona, Pa., 5309 

50. Green Bay, Wisconsin 52.25 

51. Kingstown, N. J 50 - 64 



14 

COURSE OF STUDY— ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 

Your committee has not attempted to make a thorough study of 
every phase of the curriculum, but only of those points that have been 
the subject of criticism. 

The course of study is comprehensive and rich in educational 
subjects. Many useless topics have been eliminated, but the funda- 
mentals have been retained and more modern material introduced. 

The printed course does not show what topics of arithmetic are 
taught, but by inquiring of teachers we find that the four fundamentals 
are emphasized. The work as outlined in arithmetic for the first six 
grades fits in with the work of the seventh as well as in other courses 
of study. A commendable feature is that no formal number work is 
required of children in the first primary grade and only a limited 
amount in the second grade. 

The course in language for the primary grades emphasize ex- 
pression through story telling, and dramatization. In the Junior High 
Schools grades emphasis is placed upon written composition. We find 
more than the usual amount of time given to this form of composition, 
and less time to text-book technical grammar, which is closely co-ordi- 
nated with the work in composition. This makes the study of technical 
grammar practical, and is thoroughly in line with the best modern 
theory and practice. 

The course of study advises that reading in the primary grades 
be taught by a combination method of the strongest points of the sen- 
tence, action-word and phonic methods, all of which are important in 
teaching the mechanics of reading. The phonic system is likely to be 
unduly emphasized, but from what we have been able to observe the 
amount of time given to phonics in your schools is not excessive. 

The subjects of history and geography are considered as one sub- 
ject in the seventh and eighth grades. We believe that these subjects 
should be closely correlated, but we doubt whether the plan has been 
worked out as well as it might be. There is at least room for improve- 
ment. 

Provision is made for physical training by means of plays, games, 
and drills. This method is in thorough accord with the best educa- 
tional thought and practice. A commendable feature is the introduc- 
tion of folk dancing. 

To make any course of study effective, the teacher must be pro- 
vided with the best text-books obtainable. The text-books used in 
your schools, with probably one or two exceptions, are admirably 
adapted to the course of study. Many of these books are the best on 
the market. 

Sub-High Schools. 

We wish to commend the school board for establishing sub-high 
schools. These schools are composed of the seventh and eighth 
grades and are conducted upon the departmental plan, a subject or 
two being assigned each teacher. 

In this country, the movement at present is strongly toward de- 
partmental instruction in the upper grammar grades. New York City 
was probably the first to adopt this method of organization, and it has 
proved so successful that three-fifths of the grammar schools of that 
city are now so organized. School men throughout the country ap- 
prove of the plan. Many of them have adopted it and others are pre- 
paring to do so. Of 810 cities replying to a questionaire recently 
submitted by the United States Bureau of Education, 416 have depart- 



15 

mental instruction. Of these 416 cities, 240 report a lower per centage 
of failures since the introduction of this method of instruction; 78 
report more failures and 143 have no data; 250 find a larger percentage 
entering high school, while 61 find no increase; 302 report that the 
pupils are much better prepared for high school work; and only 34 
can see no improvement. We shall not discuss many of the advan- 
tages of the system, but chiefly the criticisms that have been urged 
against the system as operated in your city. 

We find no evidence that the pupils in your sub-high schools 
are overworked. Assignments are not excessive. We wish to com- 
pliment the teachers upon the excellent spirit of co-operation that 
exists between them and their pupils. The teachers give pupils all 
the individual attention necessary; part of each 45-minute period is 
often given to individual instruction, in order to bring backward pupils 
up to grade. The discipline in each of your sub-high schools is excel- 
lent. The changing of classes every 45 minutes gives the pupils an 
opportunity to relax for a few minutes, and tends to improve discipline. 

We wish to call your attention to one of the advantages of the 
system. The great evil in the grammar grades of the schools of our 
country has been that whenever a pupil fails in one or two subjects 
he must repeat the work of the grade for another year or half year. 
This is discouraging to pupils in the adolescent stage of development. 
Too many of those compelled to repeat subjects in which they have 
successfully passed drop out of school. Under the departmental plan 
the pupils in your school who fail in one or two subjects are not re- 
quired to repeat those subjects in which they have made a passing 
grade, but are permitted to take up new subjects with a higher class 
and required to repeat only those in which they have failed. 

At present no high school subjects are given below the ninth 
grade. Your sub-high schools should partake more of the nature of 
junior high schools, and two courses should be offered — one an 
academic or literary course, the other a prevocational course. In the 
literary course emphasis should be placed upon the subjects usually 
taught in the seventh and eighth grades. Such subjects as algebra 
or a foreign language could be introduced. In the prevocational course 
emphasis should be placed upon industrial or commercial subjects, but* 
in no way should the essentials in the usual subjects be neglected. At 
present it is not practicable for you to offer extensive work in a pre- 
vocational course as you would need more equipment, and you should 
have more. 

Some credit could be given for work done outside of school, but 
such work should be standardized and closely supervised by the school 
authorities, and it should in no way exploit children for the sake of 
productive labor. 

The best educational thought favors a six-year elementary course 
and a six-year high school course. The United States Commissioner 
of Education says: "The reason for grouping the twelve years of ele- 
mentary and secondary into six years of elementary and six years of 
high school are numerous. I know no valid reasons for the present 
plan of eight and four. My suggestion is that there should be six 
years of elementary school and six years of high school, the high 
school period being divided into two sections of three years each; 
the first three might be called the Junior High School, the second 
three years the Senior High School." 

Several years ago the National Education Association appointed a 
committee of practical school men to investigate the subject of Econ- 
omy of Time in Education. This committee recommends that elemen- 



16 

tary education should end at the close of the sixth grade. That present 
educational thought regarding a six year elementary course and a 
six-year high school course, may be more fully understood, we quote 
from the report of this committee: "There is a very widespread belief 
among school men that the fundamental facts, habits, attitudes, and 
ideals demanded by the generals needs of our civilization can be fixed 
in the nervous system of the child in six school years, particularly if 
the less useful parts of the course of study are eliminated and more 
efficient methods are introduced. 

"In the second place, the compulsory-education law under our 
present organization gives society control of the child only iong 
enough to guarantee the ablest child eight years of general training. 
It cannot guarantee him the additional years of vocational education 
required to make him an efficient, self-supporting, and self-reliant 
citizen. To shorten the elementary school to six years without im- 
pairing its efficiency is to guarantee every child who does not go to 
high school some vocational education. The need to guarantee some 
vocational education to the retarded pupils is so important that many 
careful students of social conditions are ready to say that the com- 
pulsory school age must be extended to 16 years, so as to carry the 
least able elementary school children, who now get no further than the 
fourth, fifth, or sixth school year, through one, two or three years of 
vocational education. 

"In the third place, the six-year articulation is regarded not only 
as a better ending point for the general elementary studies, but as a 
better beginning point for the secondary studies. There are cer- 
tain inner physiological changes that usher in adolescense that now 
occur at about the time when the average child makes the transition 
from elementary to secondary school. The strain of outer and inner 
conditions are more or less coincident. Therefore, the resulting 
school mortality is likely to be larger than it ought to be; or school 
life is continued at a larger physical and nervous cost than ought to be 
the case. It would be a distinct gain for a child to get fairly well 
started and adjusted to his new school life, vocational or secondary, 
before the full weight of physiological and nervous changes are thrust 
upon him. The two adjustments can be better cared for in series than 
together. 

"Again, it is the opinion of schoolmasters in general, that, to those 
who have the peculiar mentality to go on to the ordinary academic 
high school, it is decidedly more profitable to begin the foreign lan- 
guages at 12 and at 14 years of age. The same advantage may be had 
in other subjects where a large acquisition of facts is necessary to suc- 
cessful work. 

"In the case of those children who are more given to action than 
to abstraction, it is equally profitable to begin to center their intellec- 
tual work about an active vocation early. To begin vocational educa- 
tion with its practical life-career appeal, at 12 rather than at 14 is to 
save many children from truancy and disinterest. It will extend their 
school life so that they will not be too early driven into unprofitable 
and futureless employments. They will still take up much general 
training parallel with and motivated by their broad study of vocational 
work. 

"Here again the practicability of a reorganized elementary school 
period finds adequate sanction in experience. We have only to turn to 
the concrete efforts in this direction that have already been made by 
American schoolmen. Such experiments as have been tried in Amen 



17 

can school systems under practical operating conditions prove with 
certainty that the elementary school may be reduced to seven years; 
and that there is an almost equally strong probality that an elementary 
school of six years would be fully as efficient. Where the seven years 
school has been tried, the school officials very generally anticipate a 
six-year plan. 

"The organization of junior high schools out of the two upper 
grammar grades and the first-year high school class is a distinctly 
successful move in the same direction. Here the high school begins to 
reach down into the grammar school. The establishment of separate 
departmental schools in the elementary system, consisting of the two 
upper elementary years and given over to manual activities, is the 
vocational movement beginning to claim its own from the elementary 
school system. All sorts of successful experimentation tending to re- 
strict the general elementary curriculum to six years give at least ten- 
tative, fragmentary approval to the practicality of the plan suggested." 

Educational associations every where are endorsing the plan. 
Only a few weeks ago the Inland Empire Teachers' Association, com- 
posed of the teachers of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, recom- 
mended that the schools of those states be reorganized with six years 
in the elementary schools and six in the high school. 

The movement to establish Junior High Schools in your city we 
consider a great step forward toward the improvement of your schools. 
We recommend that as soon as practicable your sub-high schools be- 
come junior high in the real sense of the term, and include the ninth 
grade. 

Character of Teaching. 

The classroom work on the whole is good; it is much better than 
could reasonably be expected considering the fact that supervision 
under the existing plan is necessarily very meagre., Eighty teachers 
were visited and their work observed. No teacher in that list should 
be classed as a failure. Most of them are doing average work and a 
few are accomplishing unusual results. All the teachers show a spirit 
of co-operation and a desire to contribute their part toward raising 
the standard of teaching. 

There is an absence of uniform tests throughout the grades and 
the sub-high schools which should be corrected. The uniform test 
given from time to time and particularly upon the completion of the 
work of a grade or a semester is by no means an infallible guide in 
determining efficiency, but it does act as a salutary spur to the indif- 
ferent or lagging teacher and is never a matter of dread to the capable 
and conscientious one. The commission agrees that the teaching in 
the city of Ogden should be carefully standardized, to the end that 
more definite standards of achievement for each grade be established; 
that the results of instruction be more carefully measured by the use 
of standard tests of efficiency such as the Ayres and Thorndyke scale 
in writing, the Hillegas scale in English, and the Courtis test in Arith- 
metic. 

Grade Supervision. 

These improvements and many others will result if supervision is 
made more effective. The plan in operation is thus outlined in the 
course of study, Ogden City Public Schools, 1912-13. 



18 

Supervisors. 

"The Supervisors in the Ogden Public Schools inspect at regular 
intervals the work that is being done in their respective departments, 
and suggestions are made to the principals and the superintendent 
with reference to the way those subjects are conducted; and where 
necessity demands it, the supervisor in the presence of the principal of 
the school will offer the needed corrections to teachers. 

"Each grade and each special subject has a supervisor. These 
supervisors, in addition, all occupy other positions either as head of 
a department in high school or as principal of one of the grade 
schools and meetings are held once each month by each supervisor 
with all the teachers in his department. In fact most of the supervi- 
sion is done in this way. In all cases the principal is supreme in his 
building, and the supervisor is simply an advisory person." 

It does not appear that this plan can produce or has produced 
entirely satisfactory results. In the first place, the principal of a 
grade school or the head of a department in a high school may be fully 
equal to the task of carrying on the work of his chosen line and yet 
may not be fitted by temperament or preparation for supervisory 
work in the lower grades. It would only be natural to assume that 
the preparation of these principals has been adequate for the position 
they occupy rather than for the secondary or delegated one. Hence 
the qualifications of such persons for grade supervisorship may rightly 
be called in question. Moreover, it is doubtful if they can approach 
the work in the proper spirit since each one would be inclined to view 
it as secondary to that of his own school or department. 

The limitations of time, also, so important a theme of discussion 
in this report, would militate against such a division of supervisory 
labor. This has been proved by the experience of the past year. All 
prinicpals who have expressed themselves on the working possibilities 
of this plan have agreed that if for no other reason than that of time, 
satisfactory supervisory results under this system can not be obtained. 

The commission recommends that at least one person especially 
trained be employed to carry on the work of ordinary grade supervi- 
sion up to the sub-high schools. The principal thus relieved of the 
work and responsibility of special grade supervision over the city, 
might devote this time to direct teaching within his school. In the 
opinion of the commission this change would be welcomed by both 
principals and teachers; it should entail no extra cost and would ad- 
vance the standard of efficiency all along the line. 

Half Day Plan. 

The half day plan of school organization as set forth by the 
superintendent is as follows: 

The quotation is from Superintendent Mills in reply to a list of ques- 
tions propounded by the Commission. 

"The school according to the half day session would have four 
units of accredited study in one half day and the other half day would 
be made up of music, art, study, sewing, cooking, manual training, 
bookbinding, and physical culture. A large study hall with a super- 
vising teacher in charge in control of large groups of students in place 
of the present small groups. Also music could be handled in large sec- 
tions. This would save a number of teachers. Manual training and 
sewing have sufficient equipment for 30 pupils at a time. Two hours 
a day is all that we would be prepared to devote to the purely indus- 
trial work. The rest of the half day would be devoted to the social 



19 

studies, including music, art, physical culture and study hall. The or- 
ganization of this plan would be a big financial saving to the school 
system and would also increase the efficiency. We could organize a 
school of 500 students, 250 in each half day, shifted to the other half 
day for the other class of work as follows: 250 take academic work in 
the forenoon. In round numbers 125 boys and 125 girls. This would 
make eight classes of 31 students each. Eight teachers would give 
these students their academic work in the forenoon and the other 
group in the afternoon. The study hall would hold about 150 students 
who could study an hour or an hour and a half in the afternoon at one 
time or at two different times under one teacher, while the other one- 
hundred students — 50 boys and 50 girls might take music, art, physical 
culture, manual training, and sewing under two or more teachers. The 
eight teachers in the morning plus three special teachers in the after- 
noon plus the study hall director would make 12 teachers handling 
500 students. When one class of these special students has finished its 
rounds, it can be returned to the study hall (a general clearing house), 
and another group given their work. These larger groups would save 
in teachers' salaries considerable money. We now have from 13 to 15 
teachers in each building for each 300 students. We have enough 
manual training and sewing equipment to carry out this plan. I do not 
mean to convey the idea that we could not use more or that we would 
not get more. This plan then of the double half day system of 
academic work and industrial, social and physical work would provide 
smaller classes in the academic work, increasing the efficiency and 
larger lasses in study hall, music, physical culture, etc., increasing the 
efficiency there, the whole decreasing the expenditures. This, of 
course, is on the assumption that all boys and girls will be in school 
both sessions for longer hours." 

We must take issue with the superintendent in respect to the 
plan as being unpedagogical, unnecessary, and well nigh impossible of 
realization. In the first place, no teacher can sustain for any length 
of time the mental and physical strain incident to teaching daily eight 
forty-five-minute classes of 31 pupils each. In addition to the work 
of the class room, there would naturally be, in all grades except the 
very lowest, a certain amount of written work to be passed in daily, or 
at stated intervals. This would call for correction and return to the 
pupils. Clerical work of this type is conceded as essential to correct 
teaching. Even the minimum of this character of work, with 250 pupils 
daily, would be a stupendous task in itself. The thorough preparation 
of the lesson by the teacher in all its phases of development is another 
very important element in good teaching. This also takes time; in fact, 
it should take much more time than it does under the ordinary or 
present plan. It would seem that the dynamic energy, mental and 
physical, of a teacher would have to be doubled in order that good 
teaching under this scheme should obtain. Otherwise the teacher 
would simply be compelled, for self-preservation, to slight her work 
to the point of inefficiency. It is doubtful even then whether the mere 
routine of teaching in any way eight 45-minute classes of 31 pupils 
each, day in and day out, would not utterly exhaust her vitality. 

In this connection nothing has been said of that most important 
of all principles in successful teaching — individual instruction. Class 
instruction to be efficient must be supplemented by that of the in- 
dividual. The teacher in her period of preparation for the lesson of 
the coming day must have in mind certain individuals in her class, 
whose interest must be awakened and whose comprehension of the 
subject matter must be facilitated or made possible by presenting the 
subject in a peculiar or extraordinary way. She should have some 



20 

time within the school day to give individual instruction to those 
pupils whose grasp has not been as ready as that of others. This has 
no reference to sub-normal pupils, who should, of course, be segre- 
gated and have peculiar attention and instruction by special teachers — 
but to the rank and file of school children. 

The above findings are all on the assumption that the teacher has 
but one subject lesson to teach every one of the eight periods. If 
she had more than one subject lesson to teach, the task would ob- 
viously be greater. 

As to the pupils, the experience of teachers has been that four 
consecutive periods of recitation on four different subjects is not as 
satisfactory as where a relaxation or study period intervenes; e. g.. 
two recitations — one study period — two recitations; and the school 
programs of high school and sub-high school pupils are thus arranged 
whenever possible. The average boy or girl does not differ from the 
adult in this particular. The mind needs some time to do its assorting 
and composing after it has received the consignment of material. 

For the sake of clearness we may issue from the plan as outlined 
that not more than half, or 125, of the afternoon pupils are in the 
study hall at any one time; the others would be distributed in classes 
of 41 among three teachers, who are to give them training in music, 
art, physical culture, manual training, and sewing. Here again arises a 
difficulty. The classes are much too large for efficient instruction, un- 
less it be in music and physical culture. Moreover, it is not an easy 
matter to find three teachers who could combine in the teaching of 
these diversified subjects. We might reasonably look for teachers 
who could give instruction equally well in arithmetic, grammar, and 
history, since the scope of general school training has naturally cov- 
ered these branches; but the lines of work referred to are special in 
their nature and a teacher who has fitted herself to teach in one of 
them is rarely equipped to give instruction in any of the others. 

To summarize on this point: The proposition to assign the work 
of teaching 500 pupils to 12 teachers who are to work eight 45-minute 
periods each day from nine to twelve in the morning and from one to 
four in the afternoon is, to say the least, impracticable from every 
point of view. 

With the exception of the high school, which has admirable facili- 
ties in rooms and equipment for domestic science and domestic art, 
the physical limitations in buildings and equipment are entirely inade- 
quate for carrying on instruction in manual training and domestic 
science, even under the present system, where such instruction is con- 
fined to the high school and the three sub-high schools. These sub- 
jects should not only be amplified and enriched in these schools, but 
the work in more elementary form should be given at least as low as 
the fifth and sixth grades. To do this will entail considerable expense 
in the proper equipment and refitting of rooms, but it will be money 
well spent and will be amply repaid to the community in the increased 
efficiency of the school product. The industrial phase of community 
education is no longer in the experimental stage. It is here and here 
to stay. But the training of the hand should be combined with that of 
the head in an intelligent and systematic manner. Nor should the 
work in the industrial arts be relegated to some dingy basement room, 
which had probably served time as a coal-bin or junk closet. It should 
be made pleasant in its surroundings and should be clothed with all 
the attractiveness of class room work in other subjects. 

The dignity of labor is and should always be the big plank in the 
platform of every child's education, but to place the mere earning of 
money by the boy or girl during the school life as a meritorious 



21 

achievement is of doubtful value educationally, and may have a posi- 
tively demoralizing effect on the character and habits of the child. 
Every home may provide all the necessary diversion in the way of 
household duties for either boy or girl to satisfy the "dignity of 
labor" requirement. In point of fact some homes are requiring so 
much home work that not sufficient time is left for study. This is 
especially true in the case of girls from poor families. Until the eco- 
nomic needs of a community call upon the schools for help, there can 
be no occasion for a radical change in the scheme of school attendance, 
which would be justified only on the assumption that such a call had 
been made. 

The Elective System. 

The best authorities on secondary education are practically a 
unit in their advocacy of a certain amount of elective work in the high 
school. Where these authorities may differ is in the maunt of elec- 
tive work thus permitted, the manner in which the choice of studies 
is made, and in the recognition given for the work. In an impartial 
consideration of this subject we should not view the high school 
merely as a means of preparation. This is one of its functions, but 
probably the least of them. The high school of today has been appro- 
priately termed "The People's College," and its first and principal rea- 
son for existence and for community support is beacuse it affords a 
training in keeping with the needs of the community. "The greatest 
good to every child" should ever be the animating motive in all its 
instructions. The broadening of the curriculum of the modern high 
school is all in this direction. Within comparatively recent years 
courses in manual training, domestic science, domestic art, work in 
copper, brass and leather, bookbinding, printing, agriculture, horticul- 
ture and a host of other subjects have been added to the high school 
family. The high school with the so-called traditional course of 
studies and "hew to line" methods as its only offering would rightly 
be considered an anachronism today. 

Yet in the delight of freedom from bondage there is grave danger 
of license. The pupil upon entering high school — if this is impossible 
before — should be made acquainted with the purpose and trend of 
each study and each course, where separate courses are offered. The 
selection of his studies should be made, whenever possible, and it is 
usually possible, by the pupil himself only after conference with a 
teacher adviser and with his parents. At this beginning stage there 
should be no difference of opinion. The teachers' part in this pro- 
ceeding is to advise, not to require. The pupil is looking forward to 
his future, but often with a very vague notion of where this or that 
road will lead him. The teacher has traveled the road and his retro- 
spect is safer as a guiding force than the pupil's prospect. 

It would seem best that a grouping of certain studies, togethei- 
with the reason and purpose for this grouping, be made, to the end of 
aiding the pupil in his task of election. As a usual thing the pupil 
who is worth while wishes to arrive somewhere; and since this 
grouping into suggestive courses would be of distinct assistance to 
pupil, teacher, and parent alike, there can be no valid objection to it. 

The advisory system of supervision for high school pupils has 
now come to be looked upon as an indispensable factor jn modern 
secondary school administration. The details of the system are not 
material for a report of this nature, but are easily accessible in many 
educational publications of recent date. One feature in this system is 
the special emphasis placed upon the selection and approval of the 
pupil's subject of study by the teacher adviser. The adoption of this 
system in its entirety is strongly recommended. 



22 

The opportunity should be given every boy and girl to develop 
within themselves their maximum efficiency. We should endeavor to 
make of them the best citizenship possible. It may be that this or that 
individual child is not mentally or physically adapted to a certain line 
of work, but there will surely be enough of other work in which he 
may exercise_his bent, and by means of which he may bring to the 
surface all his latent possibilities. This must surely be our educational 
creed if the "greatest good to every child" is realized. 

(Signed) W. S. DEFFENBAUGH, 

CHARLES S. MEEK, 
GEORGE A. EATON. 



Supplementary by Mr. Eaton. 

Up to the point of requiring a passable proficiency in certain 
studies that are deemed basic, the members of the Commission have 
been in perfect accord. For my own part I wish to thank my col- 
leagues for the generous consideration they have shown me personally 
and for the splendid spirit of co-operation and genuine altruism they 
have evinced in discussions of the local situation, and, in fact, through- 
out the entire work of investigation. I deeply appreciate not only the 
pleasure but the honor that has fallen to my lot through being asso- 
ciated with these gentlemen in this survey. 

While the matter of selection and election of studies to accom- 
modate individual needs should be a fundamental policy of high school 
administration, there should be a residum, so to speak, in the nature of 
basic studies to act as ballast or foundation work for the educational 
structure. In other words, the diploma of graduation from an accred- 
ited high school should mean that the graduate has a good training 
in the use and the interpretation of the English language; he need not 
be a mathematician, but he should have some knowledge of algebra 
and geometry; he need not be an expert in any branch of natural 
science, but he should at least have delved into the soil of this rich 
field sufficiently to acquire an elementary knowledge of some of these 
sciences; for broadening his outlook on life he should have taken at 
least one year in history, preferably U. S. History. It would be very 
desirable, although not necessary, that he complete two years' work 
in a modern language — Erench, German or Spanish. 

In your high school the only requirement as a study for gradu- 
ation is three years' work or three units of English; the other twelve 
credits may be chosen from any of the other subjects taught in high 
school. It would be possible to obtain these credits from studies, or 
rather from subjects that required no study, at least no preparation 
study. The result is bound to be a cheapening of the high school 
diploma , which should stand for something substantial in an intellec- 
tual way. The present elective plan has been in operation but two 
years and already the tendency to withdraw from the more intellectual 
work is shown in the list of credit units of the graduating class. It 
would only be natural to suppose that this tendency, unless corrected, 
will grow stronger as years go on. 

Now the subjects of instruction offered in high school may readii> 
be classified in a grouping scheme and the groups may be defined as 
follows: Scientific, English or Literary, Classical, Normal Prepara- 
tory, Domestic Science, Mechanic Arts and Commercial. These names 
are suggestive merely, but indicate in a general way the scope of train- 
ing under their respective heads. 



23 

In all the above groups except the commercial, which represents a 
specialized training in certain lines and calls for its special require- 
ments, the subjects of English, algebra, plane geometery, history and 
science should be required as a basis for graduation. The first four 
groups should also include the completion of at least two years work 
in a language. 

This general requirement will constitute about fifty per cent of 
the credit necessary for graduation. The remaining credits would then 
be made up from those subjects which are distinctive of the course, or 
they may be made up from any other subjects in the high school 
curriculum, in which case the grouping might be called "Elective." 

This, in a general way, is the plan in vogue in most of the strong 
high schools of the country. It represents no extreme view. There is 
nothing mandatory in such a scheme; it simply points the way, advises 
and suggests. 

I have firm convictions on the subject of the elective system of 
studies for high school students. The tendency in such a system, with 
little or no modification, is bound to be in the direction of weak 
scholarship. This tendency may be checked by a rigid advisory super- 
vision, to which all will subscribe, but it will not be eliminated. Thert 
should be some differentiation in the recognition given to a high school 
course which has embraced a training in those studies commonly ac- 
cepted as basic in the development of the several mental faculties, and 
one which discards these studies in whole or in part, and substitutes 
therefor a purely manual or mechanical training. 

(Signed) GEO. A. EATON. 



A PLAN FOR MUNICIPAL AND EDUCATIONAL UNITY OF 

ADMINISTRATION. 

Prepared by W. G. Roylance and Edward J. Ward. 

Ogden is a community of thirty thousand members. By reason 
of its location at the mouth of Weber Canyon, one of the easiest 
avenues of ingress to the Great Basin, and at the junction of three 
trans-continental railroads, it has been from the beginning an im- 
portant commercial center. As a result of this, its population has been 
and is of a mixed and diversified character, making the problem of its 
unified advance difficult, but giving promise of a richly varied and 
interesting common life as the city finds itself. 

Diversity Increasing. 

The city is at the heart of a bountiful agricultural district, well 
watered by the confluence of the Weber and the Ogden, two ol tne 
largest rivers in Utah. Until recently, the industrial development has 
been comparatively slow because of the absorption of the community 
in commercial activities. But within the last few years the production 
of raw materials in the country about Ogden has increased so rapidly 
as to justify and necessitate the establishment here of manufactories 
on a large scale. The City is rapidly changing from being merely a 
market place for the exchange of commodities produced elsewhere to 
one whose possibilities of development are based upon its own pro- 
ductive industry. Already there are in Ogden or in its immediate 
vicinity twenty-five canneries, great railroad shops, and plants for the 
manufacture of sugar, confectionery, clothing, structural iron, brick 
and tile, and cement; and two new manufacturing plants are in process 



24 

of erection. In addition to the divergence of employment of the 
citizens engaged in professional, commercial, and agricultural pursuits, 
over seven thousand members of the community are at work in most 
widely various forms of industry. 

A Threat? Yes — And a Promise. 

By reason of its industrial development, the people of Ogden are 
going farther apart in specialism of occupation, in the earning of 
livelihoods, and this, taken with the separations that are due to differ- 
ence of race origin and diversity of opinion or belief, augments in- 
creasingly the threat of social disintegration, the falling apart, which, 
unless counteracted by an equally strong unification, spells civic, moral 
and finally economic deterioration for any community. 

If, however, this fundamental unification is secured and developed, 
the very diversities of interest, which otherwise threaten dissolution, 
will become the resource of a successful, vigorous and satisfying civic 
life. 

City's Consciousness of Need. 

That the consciousness of the need of fundamental unification and 
the will to achieve it, exist in greater or less clearness and strength, 
universally, among the people of Ogden, is apparent to those studying 
the city and conversing with its inhabitants. In civic matters there 
is the desire for understanding and the removal of artificial partitions, 
which has expressed itself in the adoption of the commission form of 
government, with its removal of party distinctions and obliteration of 
ward boundaries in the selection of these agents of the City's co- 
operation. In recreational development it has expressed itself in the 
provision, or rather the beginning of provision, of means for the 
growth of public cordiality through the people's enjoyment together 
of common pleasures. In commercial and industrial matters it is 
apparent in the conversation of business men who seek to call forth 
the spirit of civic pride and "get-together' for the prosperity of Ogden. 
This out-reaching consciousness and will for unity which is the basic 
hope of a progressing civilization, is present in every American com- 
munity, but in none is it stronger, more variously expressed or more 
apparent than here. It is the democratic repetition of the ancient story 
of creation, the spirit of unity, of order and organization brooding 
over Chaos, and willing that out of it shall come Cosmos. 

Machinery of Organization Necessary. 

There is abundant evidence of dissatisfaction with the present 
fundamental apartness of the people of Ogden, and sincere regret at 
the misunderstandings, pettinesses, frictions, antagonisms and preju- 
dices which exist. There is no person in Ogden who is not somewhat 
ashamed of the fact that there is no adequate public provision for the 
young people of the City "to have a good time without going wrong." 
ashamed of the fact that there is dissipation of the energies of Ogden's 
youth where there should be constructive well-directed and wholesome 
recreation. There is also abundant evidence of the growth of genuine 
community ambition, a sentiment of deep desire for the realization 
of the greater strength and wealth and happiness which democracy 
and neighborhood ought to afford. But this dissatisfaction with 
disunity, this sentiment of community ambition, this broadening of 
human feeling, is not all that is necessary to bring ordered unity out 
of the city's civic, recreational and economic disconnection. There 
is the practical, material necessity of machinery of understanding, 
acquaintance and co-operation. The best thought of the past century 



25 

has been devoted to the invention and perfecting of machinery by 
which things should work together for good, by which physical forces 
should be combined for the production of wealth. Today it is recog- 
nized that the problem of community adjustment includes the neces- 
sity of perfecting machinery by which people may work together and 
think together, and enjoy together for good; by which social forces 
and individual energies may be combined, not to produce wealth 
merely, but to produce that which gives wealth all its value — human 
welfare. The perception of this practical necessity of a means of our 
getting together as members of the community in an organization 
that shall place under our diversities of interest and activity, a real 
and working unity of basic integration, is becoming general in the 
thought of the leaders throughout America today. President Wilson 
recently phrased this general perception in these words: 

"It is necessary that simple means be found, by which, by 
an interchange of points of view we may get together, for the 
whole process of modern life, the whole process of modern 
politics, is a process by which we must exclude misunder- 
standings, bring all men into common counsel and so discover 
what is the common interest. This is the problem of modern 
life which is so specialized that it is almost devitalized, so 
disconnected that the tides of life will not flow." 

In order to get together into a single organization of the whole 
citizenship, it is first of all necessary that the City be equipped with 
a system of commonly owned and conveniently distributed buildings 
and grounds capable of being used as centers of orderly assembly for 
the presentation and all-sided discussion of public questions, capable 
of being used also as neighborhood club houses and centers of well 
directed and wholesome recreation. There is necessary also the em- 
ployment of a staff of community servants, men and women hired in 
each district, not to promote any individual or private advantage, 
but devoted solely to serving the community as a whole. This need 
of practical machinery for citizenship organization and co-operation 
in the wholesome use of leisure is universal; but nowhere is this need 
greater than in Ogden. 

Necessary Machinery Now Here, But Unappreciated and Unused. 

In its system of public school buildings and yards, Ogden now 
has a distribution of neighborhood houses and grounds, belonging to 
all the people and capable of being used, even in their present state 
of inadequate equipment, as district centers of citizenship-organization, 
not only for voting, but for that orderly, all-sided deliberation upon 
public questions which is the recognized prerequisite of intelligent 
voting; capable of being used and indeed inviting use as neighborhood 
club houses and centers of well planned and directed recreational 
activity. In its public school system, even as now unused most of the 
time and with its full development all unrealized, Ogden has what 
biologists call the adumbration, the foreshadowing of the adequate 
machinery of its practical self-organization. It is no question of 
creating a new system of communitv equipment. It is merely a 
question of the city's economical and efficient use and development of 
its existing conveniently distributed machinery. 

A few years ago, if one had asked what stands in the way of the 
full use of this system of neighborhood buildings as centers of organ- 
ized civic expression and wholesome recreation, the answer might 
have been given that these buildings are for educational use, and 
citizenship expression and recreational activities are not educational. 



26 

Today that answer can no longer be given, for the constructive (to- 
gether-building) processes of civic expression and organized recreation 
on the part of adults and older youth, are seen to be as truly educa- 
tional as the instruction (in-building) of children. The old idea of 
education as being merely a juvenile function is no longer in the way 
of the city's making full civic, social and recreational use of its 
neighborhood equipment. 

What, then, is in the way? 

It may be answered that the trouble lies in the character of the 
public servants employed in each of these district buildings and the 
conception that exists regarding their function. They are teachers, 
and the service that adult citizens require in their use of the school 
buildings is not that of teachers over them, but of clerks or civic 
secretaries under them, and the service that is needed for the recrea- 
tional use of the common school houses is not that of teachers over 
the older youth in their use of the buildings, but rather that of leaders 
and companions with them in their recreations. Moreover, it may 
well be said, that for the systematic organization of the use of the 
schoolhouses by adults and older youth during the time that they 
are unoccupied by the children's instructional activities, it is neces- 
sary that a civic secretary and general director of recreation be 
appointed as associate or assistant to the superintendent of schools. 
All this is true, but this increase and adjustment of the personal ser- 
vice that is necessary for the systematic organization of the full civic, 
social and recreational use of this common property may be expected 
to be quickly made when once the great obstacle to the city's use 
of its community equipment is removed. 

What is that obstacle? 

Before considering the answer to that fundamental question it 
may be well to see how, from within the school system of the city, 
there has been growing a movement of out-reaching development 
tending to fit the schools for meeting this need. 

Striving Within School System to Meet Community Need. 

While there has been growing in the mind of the city the con- 
sciousness of its need of such unification as only the full use of the 
public school system is capable of satisfying, there has been a marked 
tendency toward community adjustment from within the school system 
itself, and the internal efficiency of the system has been strengthen- 
ing and perfecting so as to make it increasingly capable of meeting the 
city's need. 

When the conditions of the school system five years ago are 
considered, and the comparatively limited resources with which the 
present administration has had to work, the progress made by it 
must be a cause of pride to every observing and thoughtful citizen of 
Ogden. The improvement in the method of appointment and advance- 
ment of teachers and the scheduling of salaries has brought the sys- 
tem of Ogden from its position near the worst among American cities 
to a place which compares favorably with any in the systematic handl- 
ing of this essential matter. The encouragement of professional 
self-improvement on the part of teachers through university-extension 
study has been most commendable. As compared with the average 
school system there has been brought about by the present adminis- 
tration throughout Ogden's teaching staff an excellent spirit of co- 
operation and esprit de corps. A careful investigation has failed to 
reveal any more dissention and disloyalty than unfortunately exists 
in practically all school systems, and much less than might be ex- 



27 

pected, considering the low scale of salaries which the poverty of the 
system requires here. The perception of the importance of the per- 
sonality and professional equipment of the teaching force, and the 
willingness to sacrifice everything else for it, if necessary, shows 
true pedagogical understanding in the present administration. There 
has been, not only indirectly, through the better organization of the 
teaching staff, but directly in better grouping for instruction and other- 
wise, a marked improvement in the service of the schools to the 
children. The course of study, while still imperfect, as is the case in 
every city, has been systematically organized, with such enrichments 
as are approved by modern educational thought. The school plants, 
though still far from adequate in extent and equipment of ground, 
and though far from the practical ideal in design and equipment of 
buildings, have yet shown a steady improvement. But in nothing has 
there been greater significance than in the tendency shown to adjust 
the character and activities of the school system to the larger task 
of community integration. The inauguration of industrial training, 
the extension of school and home gardening, the establishment of an 
evening class in domestic science for young women, not otherwise 
enrolled in the schools, the practical demonstration given of the 
economy and feasibility of the school houses being used as polling 
places, the method followed in securing decorations and much needed 
special equipment by the fostering of community contribution when 
public funds were not available, and the beginning of the practice 
of first hand conference with the citizens in the various districts upon 
important questions of policy — all these are signs of out-reaching 
within the school system to meet the larger need. And the much 
discussed "half day" plan, considered both as an experiment partly 
worked out in practice, and a proposed program of future policy, is 
to be intelligently comprehended only when it is seen as an expression 
of this earnest striving from within the system to bring about the 
adjustment of the schools to actual community needs. 

In the discussion of the "half day" or part-time plan, it appears 
that most of the emphasis has been placed upon the pupil's being out 
of school part of the time. At least equal emphasis should be placed 
upon the possibility under this plan, of bringing into the schools per- 
sons who otherwise would get no instructional benefit from them. 
The great underlying purpose of the proposal is educational expansion 
through co-operation of the school with the industrial and the home 
life of the community. If it can be carried out in an atmosphere of 
constructive criticism and appreciation of its splendid aim, on the 
part of the people of Ogden, it will tend to vitalize the work of the 
schools by keeping it in touch with reality, and at the same time will 
carry into the domestic circle, and the industrial activities of the 
community the trained intelligence and the high ideals of the 
schools. The thought underlying the part-time plan is not new. For 
a quarter of a century and more the educational thinking of the nation 
has striven toward the closer unity and the ultimate identity of 
school activities with all the community's life functioning. Part-time 
in school, and part time out — the whole conceived as education — is in 
successful operation in Munich and many other places in Europe, and 
in Cincinnati, Fitchburg, and many other cities and towns on this 
continent. The plan proposed in Ogden which aims to combine the 
best features of the plans in operation elsewhere, so far as possible 
with the resources that have been available in the Ogden schools, 
has received the approval of educators of national repute such as P. 
P. Claxton, M. V. O'Shea, and John Francis, who, by reason of their 
familiarity with the problem have comprehended the larger signifi- 



28 

cance of the Ogden half-day plan. So important a matter as this 
should not be judged merely with regard to the practicability of tran- 
sitional and experimental arrangements incidental to its trying out. 
It is unreasonable to expect that so important a readjustment could 
be planned so completely de novo that no changes would have to be 
made as the result of experience. It should be judged upon its merits, 
never forgetting that it is aimed, as education must be aimed, to meet 
not past conditions nor theoretical situations, but present conditions 
and immediate necessities, and remembering the unfortunate fact that 
like other recent developments in the schools of Ogden this begin- 
ning has been made under conditions which have produced financial 
stringency for the whole system. 

This process, variously expressed, of expansion from within the 
school system to meet the city's need as at present divorced from the 
central administration, seems to have gone about as far as its re- 
sources will permit. 

Here, then, is the situation. The City needs and is becoming 
conscious that it must have access to the machinery of its com- 
prehensive self-organization, civic, recreational, economic, which only 
the full use of its public school system can furnish. And here is 
this equipment of community property, served by a publicly em- 
ployed staff of men and women, in whose conduct and administration 
there is an evident striving under difficulties to be of use as the city's 
machinery of adequate self-organization. 

What is the Obstacle? Disunity. 

It requires no profound study, but simply a little clear eyed look- 
ing at the matter, and the practical application to it of a modicum of 
common sense, to see that the root of the difficulty lies in the dis- 
unity of administration, the fact that the city has two commissions for 
the management of its public business which can be efficiently man- 
aged and developed only as unity of administration is secured. 

Unify. 

Because of the financial saving and the business efficiency that 
would result from unification of administration; because the public 
school system cannot succeed even in its prime function of effectively 
training children for citizenship and promoting their morality unless 
the adults and older youth of the community make use of the school 
houses as centers of organized civic expression and wholesome recre- 
ation: And because this full use of the public school system as the 
machinery of the City's comprehensive self-organization depends ab- 
solutely upon the unification of its municipal and public school admin- 
istration. Therefore, we find, after careful study of all the elements of 
the situation and after consulting officials and other responsible and 
well informed citizens, that the key to the solution of Ogden's problem, 
civic, moral and economic, is the consolidation and identification of its 
municipal commission and its board of education. 

Save Money. 

At present, Ogden has two commissions for the administration of 
its municipal affairs; one, whose headquarters is in the City Hall, an- 
other with its headquarters in the Colonel Hudson building. The 
duplication of office equipment and help is but the obvious outcrop- 
ping of a duplication of systems of equipment and service that would 
be financially extravagant and wasteful even if the taxpayers had 
money to throw away. For instance, the taxpayers are paying 



29 

rental upon polling places and hiring special clerical service for their 
voting when, conveniently distributed throughout the City are build- 
ings which the taxpayers now own, capable of being used for voting, 
and in each of these buildings is a publicly employed person well-fitted 
to furnish the clerical service. Each election costs the taxpayers 
directly, considerably more than a thousand dollars. The last election 
cost $1,378.32. Most of this expense would be obviated by the use 
of the school system as the election machinery. But this is not the only 
saving that would be effected in connection with elections through 
the civic use of the school buildings. A large part of the campaign 
expenses, those that go for hall rent and publicity, all of which comes 
directly or indirectly out of the taxpayers' pockets would be saved, 
by the use of the school houses as common places of citizens' assembly 
to hear the claims of the various candidates and the arguments for 
voting this way or that. And not only this way but in many others, 
is the supporting of two separate and duplicating systems of public 
equipment financially extravagant, and apparently the community has 
already entered upon a program of further wasteful duplication of 
expensive equipment. 

In Liberty Park, there is an out-door recreation outfit which cost 
the citizens some twenty-eight hundred dollars. It is not a complete 
playground equipment because there is not a public building there 
located for the children and older people to use during the evenings 
and during cold or otherwise inclement weather. Without such a 
building as part of the recreation equipment ,this outfit is bound to 
stand idle most of the time. Meanwhile, the children of the citizens, 
the same taxpayers whose money paid for that unused equipment, are 
and will continue to be assembling in neighborhood buildings and 
upon neighborhood grounds; and there, where the children actually are, 
there is practically no equipment indoor or out for wholesome re- 
creation. And now there is in the hands of the municipal commission 
that meets in the city hall, a petition signed by some nine hundred of 
the citizens residing in one section of the city, for the establishment of 
a community plant that will afford recreation opportunities. A com- 
munity plant, to be complete even for recreation alone, means a build- 
ing as well as a piece of ground. Meanwhile, in that very district, as 
in every section of Ogden, there is a community building and ground 
that now belongs to the citizens, which is idle during practically all 
the time that a special recreation center would be in use, and which 
must have practically all the equipment that would be installed in a 
recreation center, if it is to do its prime work well. If tin's petition 
is granted for this district it is likely to be followed by similar peti- 
tions from other districts. This points to the purchase of land for 
small parks and to the erection of buildings to be used as recreation 
centers in every district of the city. Meanwhile the existing public 
buildings will stand idle during practically every hour of the time 
that such a duplicate system of neighborhood equipment as is pro- 
jected, would be in use. The result will be two poorly supported and 
half used systems of community equipment, costing enormously and 
the financial necessities of each preventing the other from getting the 
money it needs for efficient service. 

The separate small park and recreation center duplication of the 
public school system has been attempted in Chicago. Beginning a 
score of years ago when the idea of divorce of education from practi- 
cal affairs was at its most absurd extreme, the taxpayers of Chicago 
have poured twenty million dollars into this extravagance, and secured 
for it the equipment of less than one-tenth of Chicago's neighborhoods, 
at the expense of robbing the whole school system of financial sup- 
port, and deprived nine-tenths of Chicago's children of the recreational 



30 

equipment that twenty million dollars would have purchased had it 
been devoted to securing equipment to be installed in the existing 
school buildings and upon the existing school grounds, instead of being 
spent for new grounds and new buildings. The result today is sum- 
med up by John R. Richards, Superintendent of the South Park Sys- 
tem and agreed to by his predecessor E. B. DeGroot, and the greatest 
recreation center and school architect in America, Dwight H. Per- 
kins, as an absurd and increasingly expensive community extravagance; 
increasingly expensive because it is now seen that, if the recreation 
center is to be fully developed, it must have practically the full equip- 
ment of a modern school plant, just as it is coming to be seen that the 
modern school plant is not properly designed and completely outfitted 
unless it has all the equipment of a well-appointed recreation center. 

Putting the question on its lowest grounds; can the taxpayers af- 
ford this progressively increasing extravagance of duplication? 

The City Cannot Afford This Extravagance. 

Whether the recognition that civic expression is education is 
universal or not; that is, whether it is recognized that the provision of 
separate places for voting, instead of using the school houses for 
this purpose, is actual duplication of educational equipment; every 
intelligent person recognizes that organized recreation is an educa- 
tional function and that the building of separate recreation centers 
when the schoolhouses are idle, is distinctly a duplication of educa- 
tional equipment. 

Now, the question is — judging from Ogden's present expenditure 
for educational purposes, can it afford the extravagance of duplica- 
tion? 

The total cost of running the schools of Ogden for the year 1912- 
1913 was $276,697.52. This amount was derived from the following 
sources: 

Ogden's apportionment of state school fund $ 59,484.32 

Ogden's apportionment of county school fund 23,393.42 

From local taxation, interest on investments, etc 193,819.78 

Total expenditures $276,697.52 

As Ogden pays into the state and county funds more than it draws 
from them, these figures do not represent the total expenditure of the 
city for the support of public education, not to mention the large ex- 
penditure for denominational and other private education which, of 
course, comes out of the community's resources precisely as does the 
public tax. On its assessed valuation of $14,724,530, Ogden paid a 
county school tax of 7.637 mills, amounting to $103,616.52, and a state 
school tax of 3.5 mills, amounting to $51,536.85. That is, the city 
pays into these two funds a total of $155,153.37, and recieved from 
them $82,877.74. Thus the citizens of Ogden contribute to the support 
of the schools of the state and the county $72,275.53. In addition to this 
Ogden's portion of the state expenditures for the support of higher 
education is $46,725.75. Therefore, the total expenditures of Ogden 
taxpayers for the support of public education are: 

For city schools $276,697.52 

For county schools 72,295.53 

For state schools 46,725.75 

Total $395,718.80 

The total per capita expenditure of Ogden for public education is 
$13.19 on the basis of thirty thousand population. Its per capita for 
the support of its own schools, for the year 1912-13 was $9.22. 



31 

As there are no accurate figures available from which we can de- 
termine the earnings of the community, it will be difficult even to 
estimate how much of a draft upon its resources, these expenditures 
constitute. The total percentage of the assessed valuation of its 
property for all school purposes is 2.266; of its total wealth .755. 
We have figures which give some indication of the average earnings; 
as, — There are 7,000 persons employed in the trades, at an average 
wage of about $3.00. These earn in the aggregate probably about 
$4,000,000 annually. These, however, must represent more than half 
the earners of the city. And if we suppose that there are four 
thousand more, in business and the professions, with an average in- 
come of $1,000, it will give another $4,000,000. There are nearly $10,- 
000,000 of bank deposits, which perhaps pay a total income of $500,- 
000. The total is $8,500.00 This divided by thirty thousand gives an 
average income of $283 per capita. Of course, so rough an estimate 
is of no value, except merely as an indication, but there are many 
other things which point to the conclusion that earnings and incomes 
in Ogden average high. Counting five to the family, we should have 
an income per family of $1,415.00 annually. 

The statement that Ogden cannot afford the duplication of its 
public equipment for community purposes is not based upon the 
supposition that the city is poor. That is not the case. On the 
contrary, it is comparatively rich. Nor is it based upon the assump- 
tion that Ogden is paying a high percentage of its income for public 
education, in comparison with other cities. That assumption does 
not seem to be well founded. Some of the smaller cities of Utah pay 
a much higher rate. Ogden's percentage of income expended for all 
public purposes is 4.6. One Utah town expended, last year, for public 
educational purposes 21 per cent of its entire income. Three other 
towns averaged 15 per cent. No data are obtainable to show 
how Ogden compares with other cities of like size and industrial 
character in this respect. The expenditures per capita, however, are 
available. Comparison with other cities shows that Ogden has a 
very high expenditure per capita of population, but its expenditure 
per capita of the children enrolled in the public schools is lower than 
any other cities comparable in size, as shown in table on page 9. 
The following table gives the cost per capita of population for Ogden 
and eight other cities, which however have a much larger popula- 
tion: 

Chicago per capita population $4.54 

St. Louis 4.20 

San Francisco 4.26 

New Orleans 2.89 

Los Angeles 4.76 

Newark 6.02 

Milwaukee 3.66 

Salt Lake City* 7.39 

Ogden* 6.28 

*For 1912-1913, excluding payment of matured bonds. 



32 

Of its total revenues for all purposes, Ogden expends 36% for 
the support of its schools. The following gives the comparison with 
nine other cities: 

Chicago 26 

St. Louis 23 

San Francisco 23 

Milwaukee 25 

Newark 32 

New Orleans 23 

Los Angeles 35 

Salt Lake City 

Ogden 36 

The expenditures of Ogden for the support of public education 
were $68,186.23 greater in 1912-13 than in 1911-12. $35,000.00 of this 
increase was in payment of matured bonds, leaving a normal increase 
of $33,186.23, or 5.6 per cent. This rate of increase, which no doubt 
is safely within the ability of the taxpayers is, however, far from 
sufficient to enable the schools to maintain their present rate of 
progress. It is wholly inadequate to enable the schools to keep 
pace with the rapid growth of the community. The local tax levy 
is 8.363 mills, nearly the limit that can be reached without a vote 
of the taxpayers, a little more than in Weber County, but much less 
than in many Utah districts. It is certain, however, that the improve- 
ments needed in the Ogden schools, simply to provide the necessities 
for their narrow use as merely the centers of children's instruction, 
cannot be made from the proceeds of tax levies alone. Bonding is 
necessary. An analysis of the financial condition and a comparison 
with other Utah cities and districts will show that relatively and 
absolutely the city may safely bond much more heavily for school 
purposes. At present Ogden is carrying a municipal bonded indebted- 
ness of over $1,000,000, and the school bonds of only $195,000, or 
more than five times as much for general municipal as for school 
purposes. Generally throughout the state, the proportion for schools 
is larger than this; in the smaller towns, much larger. Relative to 
population and to assessed valuation, it is much greater in Salt Lake 
City and Murray, though less in Logan and in Provo, as shown by 
the following table: 

Assessed School Municipal 

Cities Population Valuation Bonds Bonds 

Salt Lake 105,000 $1,485,000 $4,398,000 

Ogden 30,000 $14,924,531 195,000 1,005,000 

Provo 10,000 182,000 

Logan 10,000 162,000 

Murray 5,000 22,000 



But the true test of ability to bond is the present earning power, 
the rate of its increase, and the assurance that there will continue to 
be a sufficient increase in the earning power of the community. We 
must bequeath to the future, not only the debt, but the ability to pay it. 

From the above it appears that Ogden is comparatively well able 
to make a considerable bond issue for the immediate improvement 
of its school plant and equipment. We suggest the advisability of 
caring for all permanent improvements for some time to come by 



33 

bonding, leaving all that can be derived from annual taxation for the 
maintenance of the schools. 

Of the permanent improvements needed, some of which are men- 
tioned in other parts of this report, the following should be supplied 
as soon as bonds can be voted: 

The placing of all school buildings in a thoroughly sanitary 
condition. 

The installing of adequate, modern heating and ventilation in all 
buildings. 

Indoor and outdoor gymnasium equipment sufficient to meet the 
needs of all the school children. 

The extension of the school grounds to provide for school gardens 
as well as adequately to provide for space for play. 

The removal or renovation for use of the two old buildings in 
the rear of the Central Junior High School and the Madison School 
respectively. 

Such addition to present buildings or construction of new build- 
ings as will relieve the congestion that now exists in some of the 
schools, and will make unnecessary the use of rooms below the 
ground level for study or recitation. 

Increased equipment for industrial training in the High Schools 
and adequate industrial training equipment for all schools, elementary 
as well as high. 

Ogden Has Not One Cent to Waste on Duplication. 

Ogden's bond limit for school purposes is $441,735.00. The out- 
standing bonded indebtedness for schools is $195,000. This leaves in 
round numbers, $250,000, that the taxpayers may yet elect to issue. 
If this whole amount were issued, it would not be sufficently adequate 
to meet Ogden's need for ample school grounds, buildings and equip- 
ment. With less than the amount of money that this bond issue will 
yield, the schools will not only be physically hampered, but their 
deterioration cannot be prevented. 

The public school system of Ogden needs for its efficiency, con- 
sidered merely as its public instrument of instruction of children, 
MORE money than can be secured from annual taxation and from 
bonds. Obviously Ogden cannot afford to waste one penny in the 
purchase of land and the construction of buildings for a duplicate 
system of community equipment. But, this is what it does when 
money is spent for the rental of places for voting while it has and 
might be using its public school houses for this purpose; and this 
is what it has begun to do in its installation of recreational equip- 
ment in Liberty Park and this is what is likely to be done on an 
extensive scale if the petition in the hands of the Mayor is granted 
and the policy of small parks and recreation centers separate from 
the public school buildings and grounds is followed out. This is what 
is being done and is likely to continue to be done if the city com- 
mission and the school board are not consolidated. 

Community Plants are Best and Cheapest School Plants. 

It is obvious that the ground that is used as a school yard during 
the early part of the school days can be used as a small park and 
recreation field by all of the people in the community and that the 
best school ground is the best park and recreation field, and vice 
versa; so that the purchase of separate plots of ground for recreation 
purposes is a clear duplication. To one who is not familiar with the 
recent and best developments in school and recreation center archi- 



34 

tecture, it may not be so obvious that the building of community 
recreation centers, separate from the schools is a clear duplication. 
For a number of years Dwight H. Perkins was school architect of 
Chicago. He then became the architect of recreation centers in the 
Lincoln Park system. For several years he worked on the two sorts 
of buildings. About a year ago, to meet the requirements of a com- 
munity that needed a new school house and also wanted a recreation 
center, but could not afford two separate plants, he worked out a 
school plan that combines the features of the two sorts of buildings. 
The result was a structure that is not only perfectly adapted for use 
by the adults and older youth of the community as a civic gathering 
place and recreation center, but is better adapted for use as a school 
house and more economically arranged than the traditional type of 
school buildings. And instead of being more expensive, this combina- 
tion school house and recreation center is actually cheaper than the 
old style of construction. The idea is being copied in many places 
in the middle western states. 

The first outstanding feature of this style of building is that it 
wastes no space in halls and stairs. It is a one-story structure. Most 
of the school buildings in Ogden have from a fourth to a third of 
their space given up to halls and stairs. It is top-lighted so that there 
is no difficulty in difference of lighting on account of nearness or 
distance from windows. It is absolutely free from fire risk, for the 
children can get out of the building without any stairs or fire escape 
to descend. And obviously it is not only more convenient for the 
use of the older people who come to the building in the evening by 
reason of the absence of stairs to climb, but is also more convenient 
for the teachers and pupils. 

Another feature is the practical combination of an auditorium 
equipped with a full sized stage and a gymnasium. The size of the 
stage is secured without robbing the rest of the building by its 
being the kindergarten during the day; heavy sound-proof curtains 
shutting it off from the large auditorium when it is being used as a 
kindergarten. This stage being raised affords a place where the 
seats needed for its use as an auditorium may be stored when the 
room is being used for dancing or as a gymnasium, and also affords 
space for storing gymnasium apparatus when the room is being used 
as an auditorium. 

Now it is not to be expected that the architecture of the Ogden 
school buildings will be suddenly transformed by the systematic 
beginning of their use as centers of civic, social and recreational activ- 
ities during the time that they are now idle. Certain minor changes 
and additions to their equipment must be made at once, such as the 
installation of electric lighting. But in the future there is sure to be 
a tendency to modify the architectural character of the Ogden school 
houses to adapt them for full use as neighborhood centers, and the 
point here to be emphasized is that this means better schoolhouses 
for the children, instructional use, and actually cheaper construction 
than Ogden has at present. 

If the city commission and the school board are combined, the 
first step is taken toward the working out of a model system of 
centralized neighborhood equipment, at once better schoolhouses than 
the city has at present, and better recreation buildings than could be 
secured otherwise. If on the other hand the present disunity of 
administration is allowed to persist, Ogden will continue to be with- 
out modern physical equipment for either the purpose of children's 
instruction or civic and recreational uses by the rest of the members 
of the various districts in the city. 



35 

Avoid Duplication of Function. 

The addition of the work of the school board to the present and 
recognized work of the municipal commission would require no 
change in the character of its duties, but only the logical extension of 
its functions on the lines of its present responsibility. The various 
sorts of duties which are now handled by the school board without 
business-like division, such as would make the definite placing of 
responsibility possible, may easily be distributed among the several 
municipal commissioners on the precise lines of their present division 
of responsibility. For instance, the finances of the public school sys- 
tem would be taken care of by the department of finance of the city 
government and be under the supervision of the head of that depart- 
ment; the care of the school buildings and grounds would be looked 
after by the department of the city commission that has charge of 
public property, and be under the supervision of the head of that 
department; the work of truancy prevention, sanitary inspection, and 
so on, would easily be included in the care of the department of public 
safety. 

There are now two systems of bookkeeping, budget making and 
financial accounting. Under the unified administration of the city's 
affairs there would be but one and this would not only cost less, but 
obviously it. would be more efficient. There are now two separate 
elections of public servants to whom the affairs of the city are com- 
mitted. With the unification of administration the time-waste and the 
expense of one of these elections would be obviated. There are 
two systems of report printing. With the adoption of unification, 
there would be issued more comprehensive and valuable reports at less 
cost than is at present incurred. The city has two systems of policing. 
Though not usually recognized, the function of a police department 
does reside and has from the beginning resided in the public 
school officials, the principals, the teachers and the truant officer. 
The duty of preventing disorder and promoting morality is common 
to both. Their efficient correlation demands their being combined 
under one administration. Obviously the maintaining of two systems 
of caring for the gardening and parking of public grounds is wasteful 
and ineffecient. The care of all public grounds should be under one 
management. The same is plainly true of the work of public archi- 
tecture and engineering ;and emphatically true of the work of health 
inspection, promotion, and sanitation. Beyond question, the work of 
the juvenile court and the distribution of relief should be under the 
same administration with that of the schools. In their provision of 
texts and supplementary reading material, the public schools are now 
maintaining a public library. Meanwhile over the door of the "Public 
Library" are these words, "In the education of its people lies the 
safety of the republic." Could there be a plainer declaration of dup- 
lication, especially as this is backed by the fact that the public 
schoolhouses are used practically not at all as branch public libraries, 
as they, of course, would be if these two parts of the city's educational 
equipment were unified under one efficient administration. 

The School Superintendency. 

Of course, as the appointee of a school board that is also the 
municipal commission, the superintendent of schools would have the 
same responsibility and function as at present, but obviously, he 
would be in a better position for efficient work than the occupant of 
this office now is. 



36 

He would derive his authority from, and have the co-operation 
of, a body of men devoting their whole time and energy to the admin- 
istration of the city's business, instead of having for authorization and 
counsel, a body which meets for but an hour or so each week. 

His work would not be hampered by the annoyances of an oppo- 
sition that arises, at least in part, from old jealousies, antagonisms 
and prejudices due to the division of, and the differences between, 
the board of education and the municipal commission. 

By having the co-operation of the department of finance in hand- 
ling the money affairs of the school system, the co-operation of the de- 
partment of public property in looking after the buildings and grounds, 
and the co-operation of the department of public safety in the work 
of truancy prevention and inspection, the superintendent would be 
relieved of much of the business management to which he now has 
to devote his energy and time, and would be able to center his atten- 
tion and effort upon the more professional part of a superintendent's 
work. 

Moreover, by his position as the executive appointee of the 
single administrative body of the city, the superintendent would serve 
not only to make the work of educating the children more effective 
by his having access to the resources of the various departments of 
the city government insofar as their work may be advantageously 
correlated in the efficient administration of this most important work, 
but he would also serve, in some degree as a preserver and promotor 
of unity of organization in the work of the commission itself. In this 
position, the superintendent would not be a "city manager;" but if 
this plan is adopted, it will be seen by students of municipal admin- 
istration that under this plan, the advantages of both the "commission 
form" and the "city manager" plan are secured — the distribution of 
functions which belongs to the commission plan is preserved, and at 
the same time, the centralization of those responsibilities that should 
be centralized, with the consequent unification of the work of the 
whole body, is secured. It has all of the advantages of the "city 
manager" plan, without carrying too far the centralization of responsi- 
bility, as seems to have been done in the cities and towns that have 
gone to this extreme in striving after unity in municipal administra- 
tion. 

Obviously, the focussing of attention upon the work of the super- 
intendent, which the establishment of his office under the unified com- 
mission would secure, would tend to call forth the highest capacitie-e 
of the man who occupies this position, would protect him from the 
indignities that the present occupant of the superintendency is called 
upon to suffer, and would be a guarantee that the selection of a' man 
for this position will continually be upon a high standard. 

The Civic Secretaryship. 

As has been suggested above, the increased use of the public 
school buildings and grounds as centers of civic expression and muni- 
cipal recreation, which would be facilitated by the placing of their 
control in the hands of the single commission, would imply the estab- 
lishment of the office of general civic secretary and executive organ- 
izer and director of the wider uses of the public school plant. 

The responsibility of this office would not conflict with that of 
the superintendent of schools, but would begin where the responsi- 
bility of the superintendent now ends. The superintendent is officially 
responsible for organizing and directing the use of this system of 
neighborhood buildings as centers for the instruction of children. 
His responsibility is simply over the children who are enrolled in the 



37 

public schools. He has the regular and established use of this system 
of buildings under his administration. Now the whole realm of the 
use of these buildings by adults for voting and for other civic activ- 
ities and their use by young people for training in self government, 
and their use by all the people as centers of recreation and culture, 
requires as definite and systematic organization, and continuous at- 
tention as does the work now established in the hands of the super- 
intendent of schools. 

The function of this office of civic secretary would include the 
arrangements for and the handling of the details of the use of the 
public schoolhouses as polling places and as centers of civic assembly. 
In his relation to the adult citizens in their use of these buildings, the 
civic secretary would obviously not be over the citizens in authority, 
but under them as the clerk of a board of aldermen or of a deliber- 
ative assembly in the state house or the national capitol is under its 
membership, or as the clerk was, in the old New England Town, not 
over the citizens, but at their service and command. 

In order to work out efficiently and economically the use of the 
use of the schoolhouses as centers of district citizenship organization 
and expression, it will of course, be necessary to have district secretar- 
ial service provided. 

It has been found that normally this work may be rendered best 
bjr the school principal in each district. 

In order to take charge of the work of social center organization it 
is obviously necessary that the school principal should be relieved of 
some of the detail work for which he is now engaged. Obviously, the 
authorization of the principal as the district clerk for voting and for 
deliberation of the citizens will tend to make his service as principal 
over the children in a community more vital and efficient by as much 
as he will be kept constantly and officially in touch with the adults 
of the district. Not always, however, is the principal qualified to 
render this service, and in some cases it may be necessary to arrange 
for its being rendered by another competent person. But whether the 
school principal directly administers this work or not, it ought to be 
organized under his general supervision so as to keep the unity of the 
social center with the work that is now being carried on in the building. 
But whether the school principal directly administers this work or 
not, it should be definitely remunerated from the beginning for it 
is as real public service as the teaching of children, and without remun- 
eration there is no definite fixing of responsibility. 

A few years ago it was supposed that the administration of the 
uses of the schoolhouses as civic and recreation centers necessitated 
the appointment of a general civic secretary separate from the city 
superintendent of schools. But during the past year Mr. W. E. Mad- 
dock, the superintedent of schools at Superior, Wisconsin, has demon- 
strated that the administration of social center activities may be car- 
ried on by the superintendent himself. To be sure, Mr. Maddock had 
one assistant whose work it was to organize and outline this develop- 
ment, and now Mr. Maddock has six assistants specificially engaged 
for this work of community organization. But the experience of 
Superior has shown that the function of general civic secretary may 
be,, and indeed does tend to be combined and unified with that of the 
city superintendent. 

Whether this work be done by an associate or assistant the 
superintendent or directly by the superintendent, it is important that 
it be officially defined. The general civic secretary occupies some- 
what the same relation toward the school principals in their work as 
district secretaries that the superintendent of schools occupies to- 



38 

ward the principals in their work of directing the children's instruction. 
The general civic secretary will assist in bringing about the initial 
organization, in suggesting constitution, programs, speakers, and in 
assembling, organizing and transmitting the information gained from 
the experience of the various communities, so that this may be avail- 
able for the use of all the communities. 

By having this general civic secretarial office established at the 
center of administration, of the city's affairs, it will serve as a con- 
venient agency for the municipal commission in bringing about the 
orderly consideration by the citizens of such matters as the com- 
missioners might wish to refer to the people, and so would help to 
bring about a more discerning and intelligent support of the citizens' 
agents in their work. On the other hand, his appointment and the 
establishment of his office would tend to prevent the bothering of 
the commission by individuals "cranks" and to obviate interference 
with the commission's work by little private, volunteer and irrespon- 
sible organizations of factional character and partisan bias. It would 
bring the citizenship as an organized body closer to its municipal 
agent, and conversely, it tends to prevent the municipal agents from 
either lagging behind or going ahead of the intelligent and well-con- 
sidered desire of the people whose servants they are. In addition to 
his service for the systematic consideration of local questions, of 
course, it would be the duty of the Civic Secretary to study how the 
problems of state and national welfare, for whose decision the citizens 
of Ogden have their full share of responsibility may be presented so 
as to have their consideration fair and the examination into their 
merits thorough. 

In addition to his service as civic secretary under the citizenship, 
devoted to the work of making the common interest interesting, which 
would give its fundamental and basic character to his office, the man 
appointed to this position would have charge of the organization of 
the youth, the young and men and women of each neighborhood who 
are between school age and adulthood into a self-governing club 
patterned upon the adult civic organization of each district. At 
present there is no systematic training in self-government given 
to the young men and women who are soon to assume the 
full responsibilities of citizenship. By the adoption of this plan, 
this vital lack would be supplied in such a manner as to 
assure increasingly efficient citizenship in the future. Of course 
this work must be directed and for its direction there must be 
local responsible leadership. This is not a matter of considerably 
increased expense, however, for it has been found that this work can 
be well done by men and women who are already in the employ of the 
school system. Of course this young peoples club directorship, like 
the district secretaryship for adult civic assembling should be re- 
munerated, but with an organizing general director of the work in 
the person of the Civic Secretary, it is not necessary to engage the 
whole time of the local directors of this activity. 

The third general function that would come within the direction 
of the Civic Secretary would be the supervision and systematic organ- 
ization of the recreational uses of the school buildings, their use for 
physical culture, for musical and dramatic expression, for lectures, 
motion pictures and entertainments of various kinds; and, as other 
forms of community co-operation centering in the neighborhood build- 
ings are decided upon, it will be the work of the Civic Secretary to 
serve the people in the effecting of these co-operations, and to study 
constantly the problem of correlation and adjustment of the various 
activities that are carried on in the neighborhood centers in the school 



39 

buildings and upon the school grounds so that the adult and youthful 
activities may be efficiently adjusted together and so that these non- 
compulsory use of the school houses may be correlated with the 
compulsory use of these buildings by the children. The function of 
the Civic Secretary might be considered here in further detail, but 
obviously no man would be likely to be appointed to assist the super- 
intendent in this work who would need detailed directions, and 
enough has been suggested as to his duties to indicate the necessity 
of the appointment of a man for this position, if the civic and recrea- 
tional efficiency of the city is to be secured. 

This Plan Necessary to Educational Efficiency. 

It has come to be regarded as axiomatic that efficiency, not only 
in citizenship and in the power constructively to use leisure, which 
is the very core and fiber of morality, but also industrial and economic 
efficiency, which is at the basis of all possible advance, is first and 
finally dependent upon educational efficiency. 

It has long been recognized by clear-seeing students of the great 
problem of human together-living that the development of that Public 
Spirit which is the breath and life-force of civic, moral and economic 
efficiency is dependent upon establishing an actual school for con- 
venient use by the whole membership of a community — a "School of 
Public Spirit." The description given long ago by John Stuart Mill 
of the Society in which this provision is not made, appears to be 
not totally inapplicable to Ogden. 

"Where this School of Public Spirit does not exist scarcely any 
sense is entertained that private persons . . . owe any duties to 
society, except to obey the laws and submit to the government. There 
is no unselfish identification with the public. Every thought or feel- 
ing, either of interest or of duty, is absorbed in the individual and in 
the family. The man never thinks of any collective interest, of any 
objects to be purchased jointly with others, but only in competition 
with them, and in some measure, at their expense. A neighbor not 
being an ally nor an associate, since he is never engaged in any com- 
mon undertaking for joint benefit is, therefore, only a rival. Thus 
even private morality suffers, while public is actually extinct. 

"It is not sufficiently considered how little there is in most men's 
ordinary life to give any largeness, either to their conceptions or to 
their sentiments. Their work is a routine, neither the thing done nor 
the process of doing it introduces the mind to thoughts or feelings 
extending beyond individuals; if instructive books are within their 
reach there is no stimulus to read them: and in most cases the 
individual has no access to any person of cultivation much superior 
to his own. Giving him something to do for the Public supplies, in 
a measure, all these deficiencies." 

This recognition of the community need of an institution for the 
educating of Public Spirit, is applied to the problem of the American 
community in the words of President Wilson, quoted above. In the 
same address, in which those words were spoken, President Wilson 
declared that without the practical educational working out of a system 
of civic co-operation, the American experiment in self-government 
cannot succeed: 

"There is no sovereignty of the people if the several sections of 
the people are at loggerheads with one another. Sovereignty comes 
with co-operation." 

And today the perception of thoughtful men and women every- 
where is clarifying to the recognition that the characteristic institu- 
tion of America, the public school, is not only failing of two-thirds 



40 

of its service when used merely for the instruction of children, but 
that this established function of the public school cannot be success- 
ful unless the school house is made the center of civic co-operation 
and recreation for the whole community. 

For instance, but a short time ago the International Congress on 
the Welfare of the Child at its meeting in Washington, D. C, put 
forth the following declaration: 

"WHEREAS: The nation's system of district buildings, now used 
only for the instruction of children, affords the worthy, convenient, 
and appropriate machinery for citizenship-expression in voting and 
for that organized all-sided deliberation upon public questions without 
which voting cannot be intelligent, and for the training in self-govern- 
ment of youth between school age and adulthood; and 

"WHEREAS: America's system of public school houses, repre- 
senting as it does our great and primary co-operation, is capable of 
being used as the machinery of further co-operation in practically and 
permanently reducing the cost of living and in resolving industrial 
maladjustment and unrest; and, 

"WHEREAS: Our system of common school plants, now idle dur- 
ing the time of public leisure which is the time of public dissipation, 
is ready to be used for constructive, well-planned, well-directed, whole- 
some recreation and for the democratic expression of music, the 
drama, and all the arts; and especially, 

"WHEREAS: Only when the public school building is fully used 
by adults and older youth as the social center, the commonplace of 
civic, industrial, and recreational co-operation, can it efficiently fulfill 
its prime function as the training place of the child; 

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the public school 
house be made the polling places and common council headquarters 
of citizenship and the training places in self-government of youth 
between school age and adulthood; 

"That the public school buildings be used for such extensions of 
co-operative enterprise as the assembled citizens may agree upon, and 
that the use of the school houses as employment offices be correlated 
with their use for vocational training; and 

"That the public school buildings and grounds as opened, during 
the time that they are now idle, as branch public libraries, art galleries, 
centers of musical and dramatic expression, lecture halls, motion 
picture theatres, gymnasia, and recreation centers for all the people." 

Ogden's Present Illustration of This Necessity. 

The general statements given above pointing to the necessity of 
the school's full use, if it is to succeed in its prime function, apply 
as clearly and as strongly to Ogden as to any other community. But 
it may be well to indicate how the present unfortunate situation in 
regard to the Ogden school system illustrates this necessity. 

The first and final responsibility for the character of the public 
school system rests upon the adult members of the community of 
Ogden. The public education of the children is the chief co-operative 
enterprise in which all the citizens of Ogden are united. This co- 
operative enterprise of the children's education differs from all others 
in which the men and women of the city might engage, in this — 
however earnest and well directed may be the efforts of the adminis- 
trative agents of the citizens, the superintendent of the school staff, 
yet the strongest influence making for the success or failure of this 
enterprise is and will continue to be the example set by the adult 
citizens of the community. 



41 

Investigation has shown that the present school administration 
and staff of employes is conscientiously endeavoring to develop in 
the children, by and through all the special training of mental percep- 
tion and manual skill, the spirit of good citizenship, the capacity and 
will, not to shirk public responsibility, but to see in the co-operation 
of mind and hand and heart for the solution of the problems of public 
welfare, the supreme opportunity of life. 

The first question to be asked is whether the adult citizens, whose 
example is the most powerful factor in the efficiency of the public 
school system, are setting such an example as tends to make possible 
the success of the public schools in their highest function. 

Great and complex problems of national and state welfare, the 
selection of public agents and the determination of policies, are con- 
tinually and urgently demanding careful examination and orderly all- 
sided discussion on the part of the citizens who are finally responsible 
for their solution. In the face of this demand for organized delibera- 
tion upon the vital questions of the common life, the citizens of Ogden 
have not been systematically "going to school to one another in the 
understanding of public questions." And even when questions of 
policy and method in the conduct of the great local co-operative 
enterprise of the children's education arise, such as those which have 
been agitating this community, they are not made the subject of calm 
and orderly consideration by the whole good natured citizenship 
assembling in the convenient and friendly district buildings that the 
city has. Does anyone imagine that the children's training in citizen- 
ship could be efficient, with such an example of bad citizenship set 
before them, as the children have had in the manifestation of intense, 
narrow and obviously prejudiced partisanship among a few busy 
people on the one hand, and the equally blameworthy (were people 
to be blamed for what is a fault in the system) lack of intelligent 
interest on the part of the majority of Ogden's citizens, on the other, 
in the treatment of such important questions of public policy as 
have been under consideration? 

The futility of moral training of children in the schools, while 
the city is doing nothing constructively to prevent the leisure of the 
older youth, who set the children's actual moral standards, from 
being used for dissipation, is too obvious to require forth-setting. 

The converse of the statement that the schools cannot succeed in 
their prime function of children's instruction unless they are fully 
used by adults and older youth as centers of civic expression and 
wholesome recreation, is equally true. The experience of communi- 
ties all over the country where beginnings have been made in the 
full use of school plants proves that this is the way not only to im- 
prove architecture and better equipment of the buildings, but is the 
way directly to the increased efficiency of the service of the school 
as the center of children's instruction. 

This fact of the futility of the public school's effort at civic and 
moral in-building of children except as it is made the center of adult 
civic expression and constructively planned and wholesome fun, and 
the hope of instructional efficiency that lies in the full community 
use of these buildings, which has its illustrations here in Ogden, is 
stated in these words, by Dr. Edward C. Elliott, one of the nation's 
keenest students of school efficiency. 

"Nine-tenths — one may be fair — of the so-called instruction that 
aims to make for healthy active standards of citizenship is devoted to 
the mouthing of the mere forms of civic existence. Vital instruction 



42 

in the civic virtues means contact with the real pulsating civic life. 
The citizenship of the future must be trained in the civic forums of 
today. And the civic forum contemplated in the organization of the 
social center gives more promise of contributing virility and strength 
to civic education than any effort that has sought to bulwark political 
institutions since the days when the Athenian boy became a Greek 
through vitalizing contact with the life of his elders and the Roman 
boy was educated with and by Roman citizens. 

"Closely linked with civic education is the more fundamental 
moral education. The school is learning that ethics and morals, to be 
effectively taught, must employ those channels of influence that have 
been found to be necessary in other subjects. Words and formularies 
will not be effective. The school must dig deeper if it wishes to 
reach those strata of human nature out of which comes the richness 
of a national conduct." 



The Time is Here. 

So to sum up the results of the investigation of Ogden's public 
school system from the point of view of its adaption to the needs of 
this community: 

A study of the character of the population and the industrial 
development of the city, revealed the urgent and growing need of 
comprehensive and effective citizenship organization. As the ade- 
quate and feasible way to meet this need, the recommendation that 
the system of public school buildings be used as the system through 
which this may be accomplished, was soon agreed upon. 

A consideration of the absence of constructive public provision 
for the leisure-time needs of the community showed the need of 
recreational co-operation. The economical answer was apparently to 
be found in the use of the public school buildings and grounds as 
recreation centers. 

With the progress of the investigation, it became increasingly 
apparent that the educational, civic, recreational and economic needs 
of Ogden can be sunplied only by the economizing of money and 
effort. Thus, the unification of the city administration through com- 
bining the work of the school board with that of the municipal com- 
mission, the key to the whole situation, came to be seen for what 
it is — not only an ideal arrangement, but an immediate necessity. 

As to the wisdom of making this recommendation at just this 
time, conferences were held with both the municipal commission and 
the board of education. Though no official action upon it was asked 
for or taken, not only did the plan meet with the approval of the 
members of both boards, but there seemed to be unanimity as to the 
desirability of the plan's being set forth at once, so that no time may 
be lost in having it thoroughly considered by the citizens of Ogden 
and, if approved, that a movement be quickly set on foot for its real- 
ization. 

The plan cannot be put into operation without legislative enact- 
ment. This, instead of being disadvantageous, is a positive advantage. 
It will assure the full and careful consideration of the plan and its 
thorough understanding before it can be put into operation. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 885 611 3 t 




